


We Will Be the Walls of This House

by tornadodream



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Arranged Marriage, Cousins kissing, F/M, Maybe they fall in love despite themselves?, Post-War, Slow Burn, smut will happen later SORRY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-09-25 23:45:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9852380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tornadodream/pseuds/tornadodream
Summary: "She stood firm, her clutch steady against his forearm. 'You are my brother.''No,' he said, and his voice was gravelly. 'No, I am no brother of yours, Sansa Stark.'"The war has taken much from both of them. But when Jon Snow returns from the south as the new Region-King of the North, Sansa Stark knows that the best way to secure Winterfell for the both of them is a marriage that neither of them want, but the marriage that they both know that they need.





	1. Return

The war had taken much from him. Almost too much, this she knew. She could see it in the darkened hollows of his eyes, could hear it in the low-pitch of his voice.

He returned without fanfare, a black speck in the sea of melting snow. Winterfell was a crumbling mass of stone and sinew. But no matter its decrepitness, it still held the name _Stark_. She alone had held it, had held it through a marriage to a Bolton, held it through the war against dragons and walkers, had held it while she mopped up the blood of the dead from the Great Hall’s floors. She had held it with a crown only made of red hair and sweat. She had held it while waiting for him to return home once again.

The war has taken much from her as well, but she paid this no mind. The world had chipped away at her until all that was left was her wolf’s teeth and a mass of mane. Although she favored her mother’s Tully appearance, there is no Riverland lass in her. She was all the ferocity of winter storm. She was Sansa Stark, Lady of Winterfell, and she would bare her claws for her Northern home.

When he crossed the walls of Winterfell, they did not embrace. They did not even talk. She followed him to the stables, helped him remove his tacking.

His first words to her were: “You do not have to let me stay, Sansa. This is your family’s home.”

“It is _our_ family’s home.” Her voice was firm. “And the people of the North _chose_ you. You belong here.”

He shook his head and when his eyes finally find hers, there was a sadness that she found so strong it shivered down her spine. “I’m no Stark. How long will they choose a dragon to rule them?”

She frowned and then reached gingerly across the space between them. Her hand wrapped around his arm, holding him in place. “You are the man who fought for them when no one else would. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Stark or a Targaryen or any other House name. They will choose you because you are the King they trust.”

His gaze roamed towards where her fingers curled against his forearm. Finally, he mumbled, “You may ask me to leave whenever you wish. I will never demand your hospitality.” 

His words fell into her a like cold lead, making all of her heart feel heavy. Her grip became tighter, her nails pressed firmly against his arm. “Jon… don’t talk like this.”

His eyes flicked towards hers and for only a second she saw a spark of something fiery, something angry, something that reminded her that there was dragon-blood in him after all.

No matter, she stood firm, her clutch steady against his forearm. “You are my _brother_.”

“No,” he said, and his voice was gravelly. “No, I am no brother of yours, Sansa Stark. And as much as it pains me to say this, say it I must: it would be wise of you not to trust dragon-blood.” His eyes met hers, and the fire was still there, she found it burning inside her. “Please, don’t trust me. I came violently into this world, and I know only violence is waiting for me in this life and the darkness after.”

And then he quickly excited in a fluster of dark cloak and smoke-colored hair and a chilly briskness. She watched him leave and found that all she could do was hold her throat, clutching against the burn he left inside her with his words of: _I am no brother of yours_.

\--

 

She could remember the time before he had left. She held those memories tight to her while the Great War raged through the world, let them keep her warm when the Long Night stretched its broad hand across the sky, hid it like a secret while she watched as magic died in the world.

After he had left for the Dragon Queen summons, he hadn’t come back, not to Winterfell. There were battles to fight in the rest of the known world. The White Walkers had amassed an army bigger than had ever been seen. Cersei Lannister was thirsty for blood. Her sister, Arya, was never a ruler; she was a soldier and had little time for things like forming alliances with words and budgeting the food rations in the bitter of winter. It was left to her, Sansa Stark, the last wolf Queen.

She shouldered it all, she learned the bow and arrow, fought the White Walkers with blood and marrow when they flooded the gates of Winterfell. She suspected she would not live the war, but when she did survive, she woke the next day, picked up the torn and bloodied Stark banner and flew it above the Winterfell grounds. Her broken hands stitched the wounds of the injured. She buried her dead. She bid Arya goodbye as her sister-soldier rode to The Neck to regroup any troops still left to fight the remnants of the Cersei Lannister loyalists. She learned the taste of blood in her mouth and did not pay it mind. _A Stark shall always remain in Winterfell_ ; and she did, she remained, alone but resolute. It was her duty. She would not leave.

Nevertheless, she held tight to the memories before Jon Snow left Winterfell to bend a knee to the Dragon Queen. Sansa had heard rumors: their sweat-covered trysts, blood on blood. She had heard that when the truth came out that Jon was the child of her brother that this Targaryen Queen had formed new alliances and the man-god who was Jon Snow was a begrudging acceptor of his fate. Why entertain romance with blood, especially when this had been the downfall of so many of House Targaryen? That was when Daenerys Targaryen, with her death-stilled dragons and white-blonde hair, took another husband and sent Jon Snow back to the North. There was rumor that she offered him the name Targaryen, but he had shook it off with such gusto no one dared offer the name to him again.

But she remembered when Jon was a still _Stark_ in the memory and Kingship to Winterfell. She remembered when the Wall had not fallen, when magic was still an entity in the world, when the hope of having their home back was still fresh and clean in their minds.

She remembered when she had Jon Snow all to herself. She couldn’t help be still feel jealous that the world came between the two of them, especially right when she was just beginning to the know the man who had previously only been known as her father’s bastard. His voice had been gentler, more unsure, kinder then. Back then, when she had caught his eye, a pleasant rumble ran through her, a feeling she didn’t quite understand but appreciated.

But now he was back as King of the North, chosen by the new Queen and her Kingslayer husband. The North was in shambles, with over half the houses now extinct. Bear Island remained, with Lyanna Mormont’s strong voice reverberating against the stone walls of the Winterfell. A handful of others: Glover, Magnor, Locke, most of the mountain clans. And although the winter crops were now ready for harvest, the men were growing sick of living off kraut and beets.

And this was the only time she truly was privy to his company: when the last remaining houses gathered in the great hall and shouted at each other, fighting over what was left of food, money, survivors. He had bid her to come to the meetings, his invitation brief and only through Davos as a sort of carrier pigeon.

“He needs your… discernment,” was the words that Davos put forward towards her.

She had raised an eyebrow at the knight before saying, “You are kind, Sir Davos, but you are a terrible liar. He needs me as a filter, nothing more.” She grinned wryly before adding, “Jon has always been a better soldier than a politician. He’s afraid that he shall say something he regrets, I’m sure. And that’s where my duties begin?”

Davos was quiet for a long moment, but offered a knowing look. “You have always been a good team, the two of you,” he said, finally.

She blinked, surprised at his words. This thought had never crossed her mind, that her and Jon were a team of sorts. Once blood had connected the both of them, but now that line seemed broken in the truth of his Stark mother and Targaryen father. _Cousins_ \- the word felt strange and cold in her mind. A team? She didn’t even know if Jon Snow felt an ounce of loyalty to her, not anymore.

_I am no brother of yours, Sansa Stark._

“We did,” she said to Davos, her voice clipped. “We did make a good team, once.”

He paused, opened his mouth and then closed it in hesitation. “You could again,” he mumbled, his tone unsure. “You may not believe me, but Jon Snow needs you more than ever now, Lady Sansa. Part of him will doubt that this is where he belongs, here in the North as a bastard of a Valyrian King. What’s even more important is that the people of the North will start to believe he doesn’t belong here either.”

She snorted at this. “They declared him their leader before the Dragon Queen ever did.”

“Aye,” Davos said before quickly adding, “And that’s where the problem lies. Queen Daenerys is trying to break the system by placing leaders that the people admire, not leaders that the people fear. She wants everyone who bends the knee to _love_ her. But the people of the North don’t know her and do not care to know her. And now her nephew is their Region-King? The optics are not in our favor here, Lady Sansa.”

She frowned. “The people will see that Jon is a fair leader. They will remember his mother, my Aunt. She was beloved… they started _a war_ for her after all. How will I be able to help him at all? I’m just the middle child of Ned Stark, a man that many still think too weak to ever have ruled the North.”

There was a brief and heavy moment of silence between the two of them, and then Davos said, “The North belongs to the Stark name. And you, Lady Sansa, still have this name.” Then, he paused, looked at her pointedly.

His words found her more like a question, like he was waiting for her to understand a meaning hidden somewhere. Raising her eyebrows, she said, “I’m still failing to understand, Sir Davos. I don’t know how I have anything to do with people’s perception of Jon being their leader.”

Davos cleared his throat, then said, “If I may be so bold, my lady, but a marriage to the Stark name would be a great… benefit to King Jon.”

The meaning to what Sir Davos was saying came to her slowly and then all at once, like someone had shoved her violently. “You are **_too_ ** bold, Sir Davos.” Her voice was low, almost a growl. She stood, glared at him. “Jon is my _brother_.”

He took one bow of his head, but Davos kept her gaze, even as icy as it was. “I do understand your statement, my Lady. But he is not your brother after all, neither in name nor in blood.”

“We share Stark blood,” she said, but found that her voice was faltering, turning unsure.

“Aye, you do,” Davos agreed. “But you share common blood with many houses, and Lyanna Stark is a long-lost memory for many.” He was quiet for a long second, his gaze seemingly ascertaining if she was entertaining his logic.

She was. Swallowing thickly, she tried to stall a sudden burning sensation in her gut, one that she hadn’t felt in a long time. She wasn’t sure if it was rage or giddiness, but neither of those emotions did she deem acceptable. Sansa Stark wasn’t moved easily, she wasn’t the silly sentimental girl she once was. She no longer wished to be Queen of anything, of this she was sure.

But the fact of the matter was that even Jon didn’t believe that Winterfell was his rightful place; it wasn’t unrealistic that many of the still remaining houses would have the same doubts as their strange dragon king.

“I will allow that your… proposition may be practical,” she said after a long pause before adding, “but Jon will never consent.”

“Because he thinks of you as his sister?”

“Because he’s still heartbroken.”

Sir Davos lifted a thick eyebrow at her and then nodded. “So, you’ve heard the rumors, my Lady?”

She frowned into her hands. “I’m not a naive girl, Sir Davos. I know that the rumors are more than true: I’ve seen heartbreak. I’ve let heartbreak consume me, let it rip up my very insides. I can see it in a person’s eyes. I see it in Jon’s eyes - there’s never been seen it painted more obvious than in Jon Snow’s eyes. The Queen… she broke a piece of him that he’ll never get back.” Sighing, she fiddled with the ends of her braid and added, “So, let’s not talk further of this. Jon will not have it. And I am no beauty, not any longer; this war has turned me ugly.”

“You surely can’t believe that, my lady.”

Waving her hand, she offered Davos a knowing grin, “You don’t have to try to placate me, Sir Davos. Time and violence have not been kind to my appearance. Plus I will be three and twenty this year - far too old to be of marriage prospects. Nevermind that. I’ve had several marriages already, enough for a lifetime really.”

When she looked up at Davos, his stony expression caught her off guard. Then, calmly, he noted, “You’ve many objections for King Jon to not marry you. But I’m hearing no objections from your end of the bargain. Is your own unfounded insecurities the only thing withholding your acceptance of such an arrangement, Lady Sansa?”

The sensation burned in her gut. Pursing her lips, she found herself only shrugging. Her voice was whispery-quiet she she said, “I want to stay in Winterfell. This is my home. I want Jon to stay in Winterfell. I believe it is his home as well.” She met Davos’ steely gaze. “I will do what I must to make sure we both can stay here.”

He was quiet for a long second and then he nodded. His face softened and then he said, “I believe that is a reasonable desire, my Lady. However, I must object to all your self-imposed grievances on yourself. The people of the North love you - their brave and smart Queen - and many a man would love to take you as his wife.” She opened her mouth to argue, but he interrupted quickly with, “I know you have had the misfortune of meeting and marrying some of the worst kind of people known to this world, and they may have had you think otherwise of yourself. But you must no longer let those lies become a part of who you are.” Then, he offered his arm to her. “Will you permit me to escort you to the Great Hall to meet with these rather obstinate Lords and Ladies of the North?”

She allowed it, and the meetings in the Great Hall were all roughage and musk. Jon sat mostly quiet, Ghost a mammoth of direwolf resting at his feet.

The only other woman in the Hall was Lady Mormont, who was just as vocal and angry as the men twice-her-age around her.

“You men have memories as short as your peckers,” she yelled, her voice slurred with ale. “You act like the North has never been ruled by Jon Snow afore. You act like it’s never been run by a Stark afore.”

Gawen Glover growled back at her, his own voice testimony of too much drink. “Ladies shouldn't use that kind of language, Lady Mormont.”

The heir of Bear Island leveled her gaze with the Lord Glover and said, her voice dangerously low, “You had no qualms with me bearing a broadsword to strike down the frozen walkers that encroached on the Wolfswood.” She took a long draught from her ale and then added pointedly, “While you were pissing in your pants, I was saving your skin. So don't you _fooking_ dare tell me what kind of language I can and can not use.”

Lord Glover’s face turned a strange mixture of rage-red and a pale-shame. He rose as it to say something, but Sansa stood quicker than him, speedily interjecting with, “Good ladies and kind lords, I do believe we have enjoyed too much of the ale tonight.” The hall became quiet, except for Lady Mormont snorting and taking another draught of her drink. Sansa continued, “If we are to have civil conversation, let’s break the fast tomorrow morning with clearer heads and rabbit stew.”

Everyone’s ear pricked at the promise of meat. The night had been upon them for a long time as well, and many of the men had arrived just at dusk from riding long distances. The proposal of good food and sleep seemed to deflate them almost instantly, even the red-faced Gawen Glover.

Jon, for the first time in long while, cleared his throat and then spoke. “Lady Sansa is right,” he said, his voice low and somehow hinged with a tone of danger. “We are never going to decide who wants to hang me with this much ale inside our heads.” There was a nervous movement within the hall at the bluntness of his words, and she could feel herself rolling her eyes. She had almost diffused the situation, made the houses of the North pause for peace. But now Jon Snow had awkwardly shoved them all back to discomfort. Her brother, with his forever-frown and self-deprecating humor, was going to unthrone himself by his own doing.

Nevertheless, the men departed rather calmly from the hall, only the smattering of good-natured chatter between them. She stayed behind, sipping slowly at the last draughts of her glass of ale. Sir Davos excused himself as well, noting that he would be in the library if needed. Jon sat slouched in his high-backed chair not far from her, sulkily staring forward.

Finally, she broke the silence between the two of them with: “Hasn’t anyone ever warned you that if you keep using that sour expression, your face will get stuck that way?” When he turned to look at her, she offered him a wry grin.

A very small smile formed at the corner of his lips before he seemed to push it away. He sat straighter in his chair. “Aye, they have. But I fear it might be too late for me.” He waved at his face and then grumbled, “This awful face is what I’m left with now.”

Her grin became larger. “A pity really. We could have used the extra help, because it won’t be your charming personality that wins over the houses of the North.”

At this, he sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I am sorry, Sansa,” he mumbled. “I’m no politician, not like you. I’m much better with a sword than with words.” He glanced up at her, and the smoldering-rage she usually found there was gone and was replaced with something softer, gentler. “I tried to convince Daenerys to let you hold the North. I had no real desire to be King.”

The burning sensation slammed into her suddenly, and she found herself standing and glaring down at him. “Please forgive me if I find little compassion inside me for your misfortune of being declared the Region-  King of the North.” His head snapped up and his entire face was painted with unfiltered shock. A part of her told her to hold her tongue, to compose herself, but a fire was raging inside her, she couldn’t contain it. She continued, “But you have got to snap out of this melancholy, Jon. Your attitude is going to get the _both_ of us killed. I know that your dragon queen thinks that you are beloved in the North, but she knows nothing of us and our people. She knows nothing about the divisiveness of the Stark name. And if you think you can trust her to rule the people of North who gave so much to put her on her throne, then _you_ know nothing, Jon Snow.”

When she stormed out, she didn’t look back, not even when he said, “Sansa, please.”

She hardly slept that evening, her head hot and his words finding her in her dreams, but this time they were angry, this time they tinged with the saltiness of acrimony: _I am no brother of yours_.

\--

The next morning the kitchens were furious with her for promising meat in the stew.

“We’ve hardly enough to feed the people of Winterfell and Wintertown,” the head cook said, shaking her ruddy face in disapproval. “Now we have to feed a horde of foul-mouthed guests?”

She laid a hand on the cook’s shoulder and tried a gentle smile. “Do your best, Alyce. I promised meat, but I didn’t guarantee a certain measure of it. If there’s one bite in the entire pot, we have kept our word.” Winking at the still-grumpy cook,  she took leave of the hectic kitchens to wander the grounds.

Exhaustion was heavy on her, but at least it had deadened her anger. A part of her had hoped that maybe when Jon crossed the threshold of Winterfell she might be able to rest, that she might finally feel secure in her holdings of the Stark home. It was a naive wish, a silly desire, and now she was paying for her foolishness.

There was a call to open the Hunters Gate, and a commotion as the guards exercised the rusty hinges. She hurried around the Library Tower, making her way to the kennels. The dogs yapped in their stalls when she entered. There was a moment of pause in her - sometimes she could still smell the acrid stench of Ramsay Bolton’s blood in the room, even years after his unceremonious end. But she kept going, pushing herself towards the end of the kennels to view what was entering through the gate. There had been no announcements about a hunting party, and she nervously fingered the scabbard she kept sheathed on her belt at all times.

Entering first was Tormund, with his wild shock of red hair forever askew. He rode in awkwardly on his massive, heavy-coated horse. When he caught her eye, he gave her a good-natured shout: “Oy! Sansa! You’re up early ain’t ye?”

The free folk would never refer to her as anything but Sansa, which was perhaps not politically astute of her to allow, but something that she enjoyed. After all the war, all the hands on her body, all the blood she’d spilled, she did really feel like a “Lady” at all, not anymore. To be called Sansa - _only Sansa_ \- again was refreshing

She gave Tormund a coy smile and said, “It appears you were up earlier than I. What have you been gallivanting around doing outside Winterfell’s walls?”

He shrugged and then said, “Ask your sonuvabitch King. He said he wanted me to help him go hunt rabbits. If he wasn’t so pretty, I would have told him to go shove off.”

Then, as if on cue, Jon strode through the Hunters Gate, covered in snow. A solemn expression was painted on his face, per usual. A hare as large as a small dog along with a pair of smaller rabbits was strung across his saddle. He shouted at the guards to close the gate, and then turned his horse, started to dismount, but he suddenly caught sight of her standing there in the middle of the kennels, caught the question in her eye.

He froze, seemed to stumble with some words, and then said quietly, “You are up early, Sansa.”

“I don’t sleep well. Not anymore,” she said briskly. Then: “Did you seriously go unaccompanied outside the gates for a couple bunnies?”

“Well, that hurts,” Tormund offered. “He wasn’t unaccompanied!”

She sent the wildling a warning glance before saying, “Jon, you are a King now. And, if I can be honest, a somewhat unpopular King.”

He frowned at her. “Your confidence in me is flattering, truly.”

She took a step closer, felt her face burning with the sting of rising impatience. “It isn’t my confidence that’s the issue, Jon. If you keep acting so nonchalant about your title, there will be someone who will be inspired to take Winterfell away from you.” She stopped, had to swallow an unexpected sob from her throat. “There will be someone who will want to take Winterfell away from _us_. And I’ve fought too hard to stay here… I’ve given my blood and my youth and my maidenhood to stay here. I will not go gentle from my home, Jon Snow. Do you understand me?”

There was only the howl of the dogs for a long second. His eyes were on her, and she found the air inside her lungs hot and furious. Then, slowly, he dismounted his horse, pulled down his kill and stalked quickly towards her. He was only a few inches away from her when he stopped, and stared down at her. She was prepared to glower back at him, a fire inside her belly. However, when she met his eyes, she saw them as sad, pleading, so apologetic that she could only blink thoroughly in surprise.

Then, finally, he said, “I wanted to make good on your promise last night.” He raised the rabbits in the air and said unnecessarily, “For the stew.”

“Oh,” was all that she could breathe, and suddenly she felt a rush of blood on her face. The dramatics of her speech just a few seconds prior suddenly fell on her, painful and awkward. _Still a silly girl_ , she thought angrily at herself and turned her lips in a thin line to stop a pitiful sob from escaping her.

“I’ll take these to the kitchens,” he murmured, and she thought maybe he’d take his leave of her, leave her with a wounded pride and the sensation that had just reverted once again to the frivolous girl she had once been. But then he leaned forward so that his face was so close to her face that she could feel his words hot against her cheeks. “And I can promise you this, Sansa: the man who tries to take Winterfell from you will rue the day the thought even appeared in his mind. I will make sure that no one ever takes your home away from you, not ever again.”

He stalked away, again a flurry of dark cloak and ebony hair. She watched him leave, clutching her throat like if she did that, she would be able to contain all his words inside her. Even amongst all his angst and brooding, the truthfulness in his statement felt real, raw. If Jon Snow could be accused of anything, it was honesty. He meant what he said, she was sure of that.

“He’s been a grumpy sonuvabitch lately, hasn’t he?” Tormund grumbled next to her.

She turned to him and raised an eyebrow. “I think Jon Snow came into this world grumpy.”

The wildling let out an uproarious guffaw before laying at hand on her shoulder and saying, “True enough, my dear lass. But, he’s a good man, no matter how much of a pain in the ass he can be.”

A small grin formed across her mouth and she nodded. “He is a fine man,” she said and then added, her smile dissolving, “and he would be a fine King. Now, I have just got to convince him of that as well. I have to convince him of that or we’ll both be ruined.”

\--

 

There was a fortnight of the Houses of the North crowding the walls of Winterfell. There was a redistribution of land to attend to, a repartitioning of property that had to be drawn up. Documents had to be drafted, signed, sent South to the Crownlands for official approval.

Maester Samwell Tarly was brought up from the Oldtown to compose the drafts, review the new deeds. Lady Mormont agreed to marriage with Hugo Wull’s youngest son (a man she deemed “acceptable because he wasn’t a complete fool, could grow a hearty beard, and appreciated her brusqueness”). The documents were finally delivered from King’s Landing that bore final witness that the marriage between Sansa Stark and Tyrion Lannister was officially annulled.  

“How very formal,” she said, almost-giggling at the decree. “Considering I’ve had two husbands since then, it feels a little extraneous.”

Jon had shook his head and took the document from her, handed it to Sam. “Ceremony is a Lannister quality. They do it better than anyone.”

Her smile dissolved. The meaning of his words fell on her heavily. She could see his hurt, fresh and raw as a wound. Everyone had heard about the marriage between Jaime Lannister and Daenerys Targaryen, heard about the fireworks flown in from Lys, the grand parades in the streets, the ceremony that took place on the foundation of the new sept.

Watching his face, she tried to discern if the heartbreak and disappointment was still as obvious as it usually had been. But her cousin’s face was blank, only the smallest twinge in his eyebrow from concentrating on reading another document.

They had been holed up in the library for hours that day. The documents had been drafted earlier, but several needed to be signed by both the new Region-King of the North and by the heir of the Stark name, the eldest of her name, Sansa Stark. She had reviewed numerous contracts and proposals, found errors and needed re-negotiations with several of them, sent them down to the Maester’s Turret and they were coming back as quickly as they were being sent down. It had been a day of terse words with both Samwell and Jon and Davos and Maester Lyrrol and because of this, she had cracked open a decanter of beet-wine even though the sun was peeking through the windows.

She poured herself and Jon a stiff glass of wine, ambled over to his desk and placed it close to him. “I don’t usually encourage drinking before sunset, but today has warranted it.”

He stopped writing for a second, glanced at the wine glass. Gingerly, he wrapped his fingers around the stem, sniffed the contents and took a large swig.

“That is…” he swallowed and then added, “... absolute shite.”

She couldn’t stop the laugh that bubbled out of her. Nodding, she took a sip and said, “I didn’t say it was good. But it will do the trick.” Taking another drink, she rifled through the stack of papers piled on Jon’s desk. “How many more do we need to go through tonight? I think Lord Glover’s pride might be eternally wounded if we don’t break bread with him tonight for dinner.”

Jon took another gulp before reaching across the desk for a piece of parchment. It was a shorter document that some of the others, and he scanned it over briefly before signing it and handing it to her.

“There’s one more I need you to sign tonight,” he mumbled before handing it to her. He grabbed his goblet, tipped back the rest of the bright red wine and then stood up and stalked over to the decanter.

Her eyes scanned over the document quickly while she took another a small nip of wine. “What exactly am I signing this time?” The typical preamble surrounded the first beginning paragraphs, so she quickly read them for any misspellings.

Jon poured another tall glass of wine. “It’s a marriage contract.”

“Oh, really?” She said, still scanning the document. “Whom might be the couple for this one?”

There was a long second while he swallowed another gulp. Then, measurably, he answered, “It’s for you and me.”

Every part of her froze. Her fingers clutched the paper tighter, and she looked up at him. At first, he only glared deep into his glass, but slowly his eyes diverted back up to her.

“Jon…” she started, stumbling for the words. “You. You can’t be serious?”

He tipped back his goblet and said, “I know it’s not the marriage you would want. But I made a promise that I would make sure that you would be secured at Winterfell. Sir Davos said you weren’t necessarily… opposed.”

Placing the contract on the desk, she said, lowly, “I… it is _strategically_ a good idea.”

A long moment passed between the two of them and then Jon said, “You said that you wanted us both to remain at Winterfell, and even though I know this is not ideal, this would solidify both our claims here in the North.”

She blinked. He was right: a marriage between the two of them would give him the Stark name and her the connection to the throne. The Houses loyal to House Stark would he his. The Dragon Queen would back Winterfell if a time came it needed defense. It was - for cold, calculating purposes - a good deal.

When she met his eyes, she noticed that his gaze had softened. He spoke, his voice almost gentle: “I know that your past marriages have been… disappointing at best, but I’m hoping that nothing would be worse that being married to Ramsay Bolton and Petyr Baelish.” He pushed back another mouthful of wine. “But I want you to be safe, Sansa. And this will ensure that Winterfell will be ours for posterity’s sake.”

Her heart hammered inside her chest. For some reason, the moment had descended on her in a strange way. Her past proposals of marriages were met in a non-crescendo, a completely underwhelming monument in her life. Each one came bittersweet and agreed upon only for utilitarian sake. Tyrion: a relief from the monster, Joffrey. Ramsey: with its promise for revenge, only made real by her then-half-brother, Jon. Petyr: the army of the Vale and an obsession to take advantage of (which she was not proud, but felt necessary). And here she was again, a proposal made for reasons that had nothing to do with romance. But this time, her heart ached less. This time, she felt a sliver of happiness somewhere inside her, almost chipping away at the damp melancholy that always covered her heart. She didn't understand that, but she didn't want to prod it at the moment. A decision was at hand and Jon was looking at her with dark questioning eyes.

“You don’t have to do this,” she breathed, finally.

He shrugged. “You don’t either. Sansa, you do realize that you could overthrow me with a mere wave of your hand. The North adores you. They would follow your battle commands. Your bow and arrow has killed many wights. The dragonglass of our Skagosi comrades was truly the reason for the victory of the living over the dead. If you asked, they would make you the ruler of the entire half of Westeros. It’s yours to command.”

“I have no desire to rule Westeros,” she said, her voice sharp. “I want only to be home where my father fought blood and nail for. To fight for the name of Winterfell.”

The only sound for a long second was the crackling library fire. Then he said, “I had thought so much.”  He tipped his head at the paper spread across the desk. “I am true to my promises, Sansa Stark.”

A brief quiet passed between the two of them. She said, “I cannot guarantee children.” In her mind, she could see the Dragon Queen with her white-blonde hair, her smooth skin. Her mind flipped to her own body, the parade of scars on her back, the angry bruises that never fully healed. Underneath her wool dresses, Sansa Stark was a damaged woman.

“If you wish, we never have to consummate this.” His tone was clipped, straight-forward.

“That’s not what I meant,” she said and she couldn't miss the surprise on his face. A small gasp of a chuckle arose to her lips and she added, “Oh come now Jon: if I've learned anything over the years, it's that sex is a thoroughly pragmatic and overstated event. It would be better to consummate it and not be worried about a future annulment.” And although he looked completely and utterly uncomfortable, she continued, “What I meant is that heirs will be expected, and I've never become pregnant, not even through two consummated marriages. It's possible that I can't have children.”

The look in his eyes became even gentler and he merely shook his head. “It's truly of no matter Sansa. I don't need sons. I just need you to be safe.”

Biting her lip, she weighed his words. Yes, she had been thrust into far worse marriages. And at least she knew that Jon would be kind. Their marriage bed would be an uneventful one but the romance she once adored as a child now struck her as distasteful and utterly foolish. It may be Jon, a man whom once had been too close in blood to ever consider as a husband, but the war had changed them in more than relation. Could she do this?

With a cold resolution, she realized she could.

She reached for the quill, hesitated, then asked, “What shall Queen Daenerys think of this?”

He was silent for a long moment and then took a long gulp of wine. “Initially, this was her idea.”

Her mouth turned into a deep frown. “An official decree then?”

Shaking his head, he finished his glass of wine, poured another one. “No decree. But she has always been a fan of… strategic marriages.”

She hummed her understanding. The quill was loose in her grip and she tipped the feather edge against her temple, “That makes sense. And…” she hesitated, considered her next words, “... that explains Jaime Lannister.”

Jon’s eyes found hers and the sadness inside them was so raw, she felt it even in her own body. “Aye, it does.”

In the past, she had her suspicions about Jaime Lannister and the Dragon Queen’s marriage, her own theories of why they had decided to join houses. When Jaime realized Cersei’s descent into madness was inevitable, he had joined the Targaryen forces, bringing a small faction of Lannister men to Daenerys’s aid. Sansa was sure that Cersei’s marriage to Euron Greyjoy and their child hit a sore point with Jaime as well. Her thought was perhaps maybe they met and they enjoyed each other’s company. Jaime Lannister was known to like strong-willed, blonde-headed women, and he was a handsome man himself. It was not unlikely they might even… like each other.

But now it all made sense, she could see the plan laid out in front of her. Jaime Lannister, her father’s murderer, now Daenerys’s husband, and this was a succinct message to everyone of Westeros: _I am not my father, the mad King; I believe that he should have died. I will be a good Queen, nothing like my father._ Both the Crownlands and Westerlands were now loyal to her. Cersei Lannister and Euron Greyjoy’s child, put in Jaime’s custody, was now the secured heir to the Iron Throne, and this would keep the Iron Islands a strong ally to Westeros, independent as they were now. It was a marriage only of strategic alignment, and Sansa couldn’t help but feel some admiration at the decision that Daenerys had come to, even if it meant that she broke Jon Snow’s tender heart in the process.

But they were not creatures made for love stories. She had learned that in her youth, but it seemed that Jon Snow had remained good and naive hearted only to find all his notions of love and romance dashed in the midst of a great and terrible war.

She considered Jon for a long second. His mouth was bright red from the wine, and he looked tired. He swayed lightly where he stood, a little drunk already. And yet, there was a vulnerability there, an open expression on this face.

Swiveling the quill in her grip, she leaned over the desk and quickly appended her name to the contract.

She glanced up at him and hoped that the pallor of her face didn't give away the note of anxiety she felt stirring inside her.

“Shall we to dinner then?” She asked, trying to keep her voice steady. “Lady Mormont will be offended we began drinking without her, so we better get there sooner rather than later.”

Jon nodded stiffly, the strange look still in his eye; she tried to ascertain what it meant, but then he said, “I'll make sure that those documents get sent to King’s Landing in the morning.”

For a second, she struggled to find the correct words to say, which was a rare moment for her. If anything, Sansa Stark had trained her tongue to be deft in any situation when needed. But nothing had trained her for this moment: the moment she agreed to marriage with Jon Snow, a moment rolled up so officially and formally that it didn’t feel quite real yet.

The only thing she could think to do was to excuse herself quietly, make her way towards the library door. But as she walked past Jon, he reached out, grabbed her wrist and swiveled her body towards him. She found his eyes easily, slowly, and there again was the expression she couldn’t define, couldn’t pin down easily. Over the years, she had looked into many a man’s eyes and it had been rather simple for her to figure their motives, ascertain their agendas. However, she found it next to impossible to decipher what Jon Snow was trying to say with his dark, strange eyes.

Finally, he spoke, his voice quiet and guttural, “Are you sure, Sansa? I’m… so sorry. I wish I could have made you a better match.”

She had to suppress a chuckle and then reached up gingerly, touched his face. “Trust me, Jon. You are far from the worst match I’ve ever had.” Her hand dropped, her fingers cradled against the nape of his neck. “If you can stand my bold-faced stubbornness and I don’t kill you for being a grumpy arse, I think we’ll be okay.”

His smile was slow to grow on his face, but it was there. “Aye, I can be a grumpy ass, can’t I?”

This time, she let her laughter come freely. “ _Aye_ , you can.” Then, she moved her hand to his cheek, gave him a gentle, playful smack. “And stop saying _Aye_ so much. Just because you smell as bad as Tormund doesn’t mean you need to talk like him.”

He rolled his eyes, but his smile didn’t dissipate. Laughing, she took leave of the room but not before Jon yelled at her retreating figure: “I don’t smell half as bad as Tormund!”

A lightness expanded in her chest as she made her way to the Great Hall, and she had to put her hand over her sternum in an attempt to calm her breathing, steady her heart. It was the first time in many, many years that she was sure that now she could stay in her home, that no man would force her out. She was secured, for once, for finally.

She stopped, leaned against the walls of Winterfell, took a large gulp of air.

“Thank you,” she whispered, so quietly she could hardly hear herself. Whom she was thanking she wasn’t sure: the gods, her still-beating heart, Jon Snow. Then, again, the lightness so full in her chest she thought she might cry: “ _Thank you_.”


	2. Fooking Obsessed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oh, stop with all of that already!” Arya said, standing quickly, sheathing her sword with such ease and speed that Sansa blinked in amazement. In a few short paces, Arya was in front of her, eyeing her. “It’s obvious that Jon’s been fooking obsessed with you for a long time now - I’ve known that even before we knew Jon wasn’t our blood-brother. But you! What is the deal with you, Sansa? Are you in love with him or something?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the awesome ~*kudos*~ plus comments. They give me life. As far as the Daenerys/Jaime pairing ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ ... it's a crack ship and I no excuse other than that. Also, smut is coming. Next chapter. I promise.

The news of their impending marriage was met with mixed reactions.

Lady Mormont only raised an eyebrow before commenting, “Although I assume it isn’t ideal for either of you, this is an excellent move for the North. Even the more obstinate Houses (here she took a pointed look in Gawen Glover’s direction) will have to unite behind King Jon now that the Stark name is so… intimately attached to him.” Later, she would toast to their impending union in the crowded Great Hall; this was, unfortunately, the way that many of the lower Houses found out about the arrangement on the whole.

In fact, the opposition was not as strong as she thought it might have been, especially from the Houses themselves. It seemed that a marriage between Jon Snow and Sansa Stark - as odd as it felt - was clearly a smart move, one that would anchor them to the Crownlands while still maintaining their Stark anonymity.

Truly, it was only the older servants she heard grumble the most. She would catch them in their whispers, thoughts of: “I remember when the both of them were just babes and ran around half-naked together in the Godswood. They shared a father once. It’s… it’s not _natural_. The gods will curse us all!”

And while the servant’s complaints were wince-able, it was nothing compared to the impenetrable fury of Arya Stark.

When they disclosed the news to her, she laughed heartily until she realized that they were not in jest. Slowly, her smile dissolved and was replaced by an open mouth. And then: “Have the both of you lost your _fooking_ minds?”

Jon and her had sat Arya in the Maester Turret as soon as she returned from The Neck, bringing with her a pack of scraggly men who were hungry still for Lannister blood. She was absolutely and thoroughly still Arya Stark, her father’s daughter, from her shortly-shorn hair to the grime that was a permanent fixture under her nail beds. In her youth, her tomboyishness was a constant battle for their mother who attempted at every turn to turn Arya Stark into a lady by braiding her hair, teaching her how to daintily hold her wine glass, put her in dresses whenever possible. It was a fool’s errand then and it would be a downright fatal move now - the Arya Stark that sat in front of them now was stunning in her ferocity. Battle suited her, sharpened her bones and added color to her skin. She was a sight to behold; not a dainty beauty like Sansa had hoped to become herself someday, but Arya was rather like a thunderstorm of a woman: dark, tempestuous, intoxicatingly dangerous.

And now, she was angry. The fury shined in her eyes as she looked between the two of them frantically. “I’m serious… have you truly lost it? You can’t be married! You’re brother and sister for gods’ sake.”

Jon was so quiet and tight-lipped, he might not have been there. Sansa offered him a quick glance and he merely flickered his eyes at her before looking down at something near his feet.

Clearing her throat, she finally said, “Arya, I’m not asking you to _like_ this… arrangement. But I am asking you to see the sense in it.”

“The sense in it?” Arya stood and started pacing. “The sense in knowing that my brother and sister will be porking around in our childhood home?”

Her language should have been shocking, but with her years battling the soldiers of Wintertown, Sansa could only sigh in exasperation. She pinched her eyebrows with her fingertips, “Could you at least not use the word _porking_ , please?”

“I’ll use whatever bloody word I’d like,” Arya responded and then ran a hand vigorously over her face. She glared at them both and nearly yelled, “Why would you want to do this?”

Jon opened his mouth, but Sansa interrupted him with a quick quip of, “Oh for gods’ sake, don’t be so naive, Arya.” She took a step towards her sister, a swarm of prickly impatience suddenly flowing through her body. “This isn’t a matter of what we want, per se. This is a matter of keeping our family safe.”

Arya took a step closer to her, her face turning a brilliant shade of crimson. “Pray tell, how is marrying your bloody brother going to keep us safe?”

“I’m not her brother, Arya,” Jon said, cutting through their feud with a reasonably calm, deep tone. “I’m not yours either.”

Sansa craned her neck to look at Jon. He had the usual tragic glint to his eyes, and his full mouth was turned into a frown. He sighed and said, “Arya, Winterfell is not mine to stay in. It belongs to Sansa - she’s the eldest of her name.”

“But you _are_ the eldest of the Stark name,” Arya pleaded, her voice much gentler with Jon. And when Jon shook his head at her words, her voice became more desperate, “You are our brother, no matter who bore you. Father would have wanted you here, here at home.”

“When Sansa and I marry, this will be my home.”

Arya snorted derisively and then quickly added, “That’s not at all how Father would have wanted it.”

“Do you think Father would have wanted any of this?” Sansa snapped and instantly regretted her tone. Sucking in a thin stream of air, she exhaled with, “Arya, war and violence has taken so much from us: both our parents, Robb, Rickon, Bran, and so many others. All Jon and I want is peace for our family. Peace for all the Houses of the North.” She took a couple steps closer, laid a hand on Arya’s shoulder. She looked her sister in her fever-rage eyes. “All we want is to secure Winterfell for our family, including your future family.” She gave her a small smile and said teasingly, “And when you finally accept his numerous proposals and marry Gendry Baratheon, you two can bring your children here and tell them stories about how your snobby sister used to torture you.”

Although usually Arya would blush and ardently deny all involvement with Gendry Baratheon - last of his name, Region-King of the Stormlands - this time she narrowed her eyes, stepped away from Sansa’s touch. Shaking her head, she growled at her, her voice both sad and furious, “I’ll never forgive you two. I can’t. I won’t.” And then she turned on her heel, stormed out the door, her footsteps echoing down the Turret’s long stairwell.

She stood there for a long second, frozen. Then, she turned to Jon, her eyebrows knitted together. “Well, that did not go quite as well as I had hoped.”

Jon sighed. “She’s Arya. She has never been known for her even-temper.” He took a couple steps closer to her, hesitated, and then gingerly took ahold of her fingers in his palm. She blinked in surprise, glanced wide-eyed down at where he held her hand. Jon must have saw her stare, because he released his grip and then quickly said, “Give her time. She can’t remain mad forever.”

They exchanged looks, realizing that Arya Stark could actually stay mad forever.

Quickly, she said, “I’m going to go talk to her.”

“Good idea,” he mumbled.

She hurried out the Turret, passed through the courtyard, past all the inebriated howls of both Wilding and The Neck’s hardened soldiers. They paid her no mind, too involved in a game of dice to even notice her scuffling across the grounds. She took a wild guess at where her sister might be, and all she could think was that she was somewhere near the Godswood, brooding amongst the ancient trees.

She was right. There, leaned up against the great heart tree, was Arya Stark, her broadsword unsheathed. She was sharpening it, her motions ferocious.

At first, she wasn’t sure that Arya had heard her approach, but then her sister shouted across the Godswood, “What do you want?”

She stopped a couple feet away, raised an eyebrow. “You are going to whittle that sword down to a toothpick if you keep up with that.”

Arya paused for a second in order to glare lethally up at her. “Impossible. This is Valyrian steel.”

“And that was a joke,” Sansa countered, trying a smile. When Arya only responded with a scowl, she sighed. “Arya, are you seriously going to have an attitude about this? People get married every day for strategic advantages.”

“Oh, stop with all of that already!” Arya said, standing quickly, sheathing her sword with such ease and speed that Sansa blinked in amazement. In a few short paces, Arya was in front of her, eyeing her. “It’s obvious that Jon’s been _fooking_ obsessed with you for a long time now - I’ve known that even before we knew Jon wasn’t our blood-brother. But you! What is the deal with you, Sansa? Are you in love with him or something?”

Her words fell on her like a blow. Sansa stepped back, staring at her open-eyed. It took almost a full minute, Arya huffing in the cool night air, for her to register her words. And then: “You’re mistaken, Arya. Jon has never been… obsessed with me.” She shook her head furiously. “In fact, he’s still heartbroken from Queen Daenerys marrying Jaime Lannister.”

Arya rolled her eyes. “Come off it! You don’t believe any of that bullshit, do you?”

Her eyes grew large. “Arya... seriously! Language!”

Taking a step closer, Arya continued, “You of all people should know people will make up stories to suit themselves.” Her sister’s dark eyes roamed her face, narrowed, and then she continued, “But the fact of the matter is that Jon has been sort of in love with you ever since you walked into Castle Black all those years ago. Don’t pretend that you haven’t noticed all of it.”

A long moment stretched between the two of them, and she tried to digest Arya’s words. It couldn't be true, she thought. She could not believe it.  Jon Snow had only met her with a coolness and an awkwardness that was uniquely his own.

But yet. She stopped, allowed herself to think for a second. Her mind raced, riffled randomly through everything that had been filed away for years. She had so many terrible trysts and so much pain and almost-deaths that the moments of kindness and peace and tranquility were hard to find.

As she pondered it, she could unravel several threads that stood out, that were different than the tapestry of her short life so far:

_His eyes, never leaving her face every time she spoke to the Houses of the North, trying to garner their support._

_The way one day, as she tried to storm out, angry that he wouldn't heed her advice about dealing with House Karstark, he reached for her hand, gently pulled her back and looked at her again with that expression in his gaze, that expression she could never decipher._

_The one night that they were both a little drunk and going over documents in the solar and when she turned to retrieve something and felt a light touch at the back of her scalp from where he had gingerly touched the end of her braid and, smiling, said, “Your hair looks nice like that…”_

_His hand against Petyr Bealish’s throat when Petyr announced smugly to him that Sansa Stark would marry into the Vale and his cool, bitter-tinged anger that was diverted in her direction when he found she had agreed to such a union._

She remembered all of this and these memories pressed into her like a weight on her chest. Suddenly, breath was hard to find in her lungs.

She met Arya’s slanted eyes and shook her head. “No. You're mistaken. Jon has always been kind to me. That's all that it is.” The uncertainty in her voice was so transparent that her words shook.

Arya only narrowed her eyes further. “You might be one of the smartest people I know, Sansa. You’re able to read even the most veiled type of men.” Then, shaking her head, she walked past her, brushing her shoulder as she exited the Godswood. Over her shoulder she offered, “But you’re absolute shite when it comes to understanding the most basic intentions of those who actually love you.”

She had no response to this, only watched as her raven-haired sister stalked away from her. The only sound was the crunch of snow from Arya’s footsteps.

A long time ago she had given up the idea of prayer. There were no gods. Magic was dead. And good riddance, she thought. The romance that once surrounded faith and magical legends had been washed away from her like an unsightly stain. But then, surrounded by the Godswood, she felt the pull, the need to look into the sky, to curl her fingers around the blood-red leaves of the Weirwood tree.

 _Have I been a fool all along?_ She asked the snowy expanse in front of her, asked the navy night stretched above the walls of Winterfell. The fact of the matter was that her body was so scarred, her insides had been twisted by so many men, that there was little hope inside her of being actually loved. Love was like the gods, like the dark magic that once tried to take her home from her. She had struck them all down, whether with strategic vice or with arrow and she had replaced it all with one cool desire: all she wanted now was to wake and see the Stark banner over the grounds of Winterfell. This was her _home_. She was a fool to leave it for things that were now dead, things like the seven and the old gods and romance.

Sansa Stark had become a machine of sorts, efficient and smart and deadly.

And she would not be fooled, not again. She wouldn’t be betrayed by ridiculous romantic notions, she wouldn’t entertain the thought that someone might want her hand in marriage for any other reason that it was advantageous to some external agenda. The girl had died in her a long time ago and she had no immediate urge to resurrect her.

Yes, she would marry Jon Snow. But she would not listen to this nonsense that he had any interest in her beyond the security that their union would bring.

 _Winter has toughened me_ , she thought as she stalked back to the castle _,_ her mind resolute, _and tough I will remain_.

\--

The whole of Winterfell was astir with wedding preparations for the upcoming fortnight. The crown had replied to the marriage contract with the Dragon Queen’s approval at the arrangement between her nephew and Sansa Stark, Lady and Heir of Winterfell. She announced she would travel with her King to witness the wedding, to give her blessing.

“ _Fook_ her blessing,” Arya had grumbled, and although Sansa tended to agree, she knew that it would be prudent to not raise a fuss and to wait for the Dragon Queen to arrive with her Kingslayer husband.

There were others pledging to come. Gendry Baratheon arrived swiftly from the Stormlands, clad in gold and black and so charmingly handsome that even Arya was bashful around him on occasion. Once Gendry arrived, Arya was far more scarce, would arrive the the Great Hall for supper with swollen lips and rumpled hair.

“We ought to send her hunting with Tormund,” she told Jon one night while they were going over the recent books from the North’s Master of Coin, trying to figure out how they were going to find enough grain and mead to feed and inebriate the entire of Westeros. “It will keep her out of trouble… and keep her from having an unexpected babe.”

Jon raised his eyes onto her, and she tried not to meet his stare. Despite herself, she had been trying to read the soft darkness of his gaze over the past couple weeks, attempting to decipher if there was truth to Arya’s words. She was so sure there was nothing to heed, yet nonetheless, her mind wouldn’t stop spinning.

He cleared his throat and nodded. “She’d enjoy hunting anyway. If she has to hear one more time about the wedding feast menu or have to discuss what color velvet her dress will be, she might try to kill us both with her bare hands.”

She smiled crookedly. “And that’s a real threat.”

“Aye, it is.” He gave her a sheepish glance at using the word _Aye_ once again, and she merely rolled her eyes. The interlude of their conversations had become easier over the weeks, although he still had the habit of stalking away in chilly silence, of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time to the Northern Houses. Sometimes, she would see his eyes blaze at a cheeky insult from a drunk Lord and she would remember his words of: _it would be wise of you not to trust dragon-blood._

Tormund was thrilled to have Arya part of the hunting pack and soon they were off to find wild boar and five-point bucks. Gendry tried to join the group, but was denied when Jon laid a meaningful hand on his shoulder and said pointedly, “I wouldn’t push your luck, dear friend.”

The look on Gendry’s eyes was enough to indicate that he knew exactly why he was being excluded from Arya’s hunting party.

Yara Greyjoy, first of her name, Queen of the Free Iron Islands followed the Region-Kings of Westeros. She arrived in a storm of brusqueness, bringing salted fish and fermented seaweed as gifts. The war had made her face fierce and rough but the added texture had made her even lovely.

Accompanying the bearish people of the Iron Islands was their once-brother, Theon Greyjoy. Unlike his sister, the war had made him gentler, kinder. He met Sansa at the gates of Winterfell with a forehead-kiss and said, “This is…”

“Bizarre?” She offered and he laughed good-naturedly at this.

“I was going to say _great_ , but yes. A bit of it is bizarre.” He rested his palm against her cheek, smiled and then said, his voice low, “How are you doing, Sansa?”

Her smile was hopefully reassuring when she said, “I’m just glad we don’t have to fight off dead, frozen skeletons anymore.”

Theon let out a small breath of a chuckle and then said, “Agreed. But if you ever need to talk to someone, Sansa, I’m here.”

Watching him leave, she wondered at how someone who had so much taken from them - his body, his family, his birthright - could come out gentle and kind. The war had calloused her heart, but it had only served to scrub Theon’s clean.

The whole of Winterfell was already bursting at the seams when the Dragon Queen’s bannerman arrived. They all wore the red and black emblazoned sigil of House Targaryen broadly across the chest. The crates of wine, grain, and meat followed the long line of loud-mouthed Southern men who instantly had an appetite to drink and find red-headed Wildling women. But the Queen herself came only in a litter pulled by two black broad-muscled geldings.

She had met Queen Daenerys before, both in battle and in diplomatic meetings. She was a surprisingly fierce queen, the perfect combination of political savvy and battlefield brave.  Although she thought it impossible for the North to bend the knee to a Targaryen again, the fact of the matter was that Queen Daenerys was a force of nature. Does one bend a knee to a thunderstorm? One doesn’t have a choice.

Both herself and Jon stood in the courtyard as Jaime Lannister descended from the royal litter first and then extended his good hand to the Queen. She descended in a flurry of red robe and mink stole. Her white-blonde hair was almost a stain against the red velvet of her dress and she was so shining in beauty, it practically took Sansa’s breath away.

She eyed Jon for a mere second, looking for his reaction to seeing Daenerys Targaryen once again, but his face was stone, impossible to read.  

Both the Dragon Queen and her Kingslayer husband met them in the middle of the courtyard and the usual formalities were exchanged. She kept her gaze steely against both of them, a smile that never met her eyes.

It was Daenerys who finally broke the officialities. She laid a black leather-gloved hand on Sansa’s face and said, “You are as lovely as my nephew always said you were, Lady Stark.”

Jaime Lannister’s clean-shaven face laughed and he said, “Don’t let her beauty fool you, my Queen. She’s been known to put an arrow through the heart of many a wight.”

Sansa blinked her surprise and then stuttered, “You both are very kind, but I must insist that my bow and arrow proved as a better distraction than a weapon.”

“Sansa is too modest for her own good,” Jon interjected, and she stared up at him in surprise. The look in his eyes was soft, again a note of heartbreak threaded through his gaze. He continued, “She may not have had dragons, but she has wolf’s blood. Her ferocity is what won us the war, truly.”

There was a moment of silence, a raised eyebrow from the Queen. Sansa’s breath hitched in her chest, knows that what Jon has said could earn dangerous whispers. What won the war was Daenerys Targaryen’s dragons, this was the narrative, this was the legend that the many grandchildren of Westeros would hear. To subvert this story was close to treachery, and before she could open her mouth to quickly dissipate the gravity of Jon’s words, a thin whistle flew through the yard.

It was a welcome distraction, and everyone’s head swiveled to see Yara Greyjoy, her head decked with the gnarled petrified wood crown of the Iron Islands. She was wearing a cocky grin and when she yelled out towards the group of them, her voice was teasing and confident, “There’s my lovely Queen! You sure you don’t want to send off this Lannister devil and be with me instead?”

The situation was diffused, with Jaime Lannister laughing uproariously at this and a rather jovial conversation ensuing between the three of them. She watched all of this with some level of bemusement; the relationships of the Southern Houses were only reported to her by letter and visitors. She, Sansa Stark, was not apt to leave the North ever again, and so watching the interlude between these three rulers of Westeros and Iron Islands was as strange as it was amusing.

The bannerman were dismissed after a lengthy conversation and reunion between Daenerys and Yara with the promise that, “We can reconvene over the wedding ceremony soon.” A light touch of Daenerys’s fingers alighted on both Sansa and Jon’s arms, and her violet-blue eyes twinkled when she added, “And we have brought another gift as well. We shall have to unveil it at a later time.”

The queen left in a swirl of red velvet and a copse of calvary. Jaime Lannister offered the both of them a wink.

She waited a long moment for them to take their exit before she looked up into Jon’s face. His usual frown was painted across his face, a twinge in his eyebrow that she couldn’t decipher. Anger? Jealousy? She watched him watching Jaime Lannister place a hand on the small of Queen Daenerys back. When everyone was beyond earshot, she scolded, “I know this isn’t easy for you, Jon Snow, but please keep it civil.”

His eyes snapped to hers, and there was a mild look of annoyance there. “Believe it or not, I am trying to be civil.”

“Well, try harder,” she snapped. She could feel a heat rising to her face, a ghost of emotion that belonged to an older version of herself. “Also, I will not be used as leverage for… your emotional revenge.”

The annoyance turned quickly into something softer, something that almost looked like confusion. “What... what are you talking about, Sansa?”

Her face fully flushed when she said, “You know exactly what I’m talking about, Jon Snow. But you’ve got to pull yourself together. You are the Region-King of the North now. Your heartbreak cannot be what tears apart the North. I won’t let it, even if I am a great disappointment for you.”

The words were hardly past her lips before she turned quickly on her heel, stormed past him. He made for a grab at her elbow, but she shook him off, even when she heard his broken, whispered words of, “How could you ever be a disappointment? How?”

 

\--

 

The following days were all bustle. Arya’s hunting party returned with boar, buck, and enough squirrel and chipmunk to feed all the dogs in the kingdom.

“Winter is leaving,” Arya told her the evening she returned. “And good riddance: I’ve had it with snow and ice.”

Sansa laughed and nodded her head, “We’ve had enough of the both of them for a lifetime, I suppose.”

Somehow, she was able to convince Arya to try on her dress for the wedding, pinning the areas where the dress was too baggy.

“You’ve gotten too thin, Arya,” She scolded, talking over a mouthful of pins.

Arya snorted, said, “You should talk. I know you think you’re being selfless eating only beet and vinegar so that the soldiers can eat meat and mead, but you’ve got to stop. The whole martyr thing is getting old quickly.”

She managed to grin despite the pins. “ _I’m_ just getting old. It’s that simple.”

Arya huffed, her tone heavily tinged with annoyance. “That’s rubbish. I know you think because they married you to the imp…”

“His name is Tyrion Lannister.”

“... to Tyrion at fourteen that you’ve somehow lived a long life. But I’ve had to kill women in battle who were ages older than you.” She cursed when Sansa accidentally stuck her with a pin. “But the fact of the matter is that even though Jon likes redheads, he probably wouldn’t mind if you weren’t stick and bones.”

She froze for a mere second before she forced herself to commence with altering the dress. “Jon would probably prefer I have violet eyes and white-blonde hair.”

Arya told her to “come off it, already!” but Sansa stuck her with a pin again, and blood was drawn. Soon the attention was fixed on removing the dress without staining it with tiny blots of blood, their conversation evaporated in a flurry of Arya’s curses and carefully stepped-out-of dresses.

They met each evening leading up to the wedding for supper, the Great Hall crammed with the noisy Lords, Ladies, and soldiers of the whole of Westeros and the Iron Islands. Jon wore a scowl most of the time, only offering her a nod of his head. The warmth that she had found inside him recently had evaporated after Queen Daenerys’s return. She did not think this was a coincidence.

But the night before the wedding, he was forced to sit next to her, as the entire of the continent was there to toast to their strategic union.

Sir Davos gave a speech of kind eloculation, avoiding specifics of the marriage and instead sticking with generalities that would not stir up any emotion other than brief reassurance that the marriage was, for all intensive purposes, a good idea.

Tyrion Lannister had arrived later that evening, but gave a toast that was equally as kind. Thankfully, he mentioned nothing of a previous marriage to Sansa Stark, and when he locked eyes with her, his only expression was of good-natured understanding.

Lady Mormont was thoroughly schnockered, although she only seem to speak with more clarity (but far less restraint). Her toast was loud, inappropriate, and garnered enough cheers to almost level the entire Great Hall down to its foundation.

“Well, now I’m aware of some…  shall we say _technical terms_ I’ve never heard of before,” Sansa muttered to Jon, who, for the first time that evening, offered the tiniest hint of a smile.

“She is a unique force of nature, that Lady Mormont,” Jon mumbled and he actually snuck a glance in her direction for a brief second. Finding her gaze, his smile dissolved and he said in a low tone, “Sorry if I have been less than jovial tonight. These kind of things are not something I am exceptionally talented at.”

His eyes were once again this strange undecipherable mix of sadness of some unexplainable emotion. What she did understand was the sadness, understood that it must be connected to blonde-headed Queen who was settled in a pile of furs at their banquet table. Reaching over, she grabbed the pitcher of mead, grabbed his glass and poured him a hefty glass.

“Sometimes the best road to jovality is the most simple one,” she said and pressed the glass in his hand. “Drink up, Jon. You only get to be a single man one more night of your life. You might as well enjoy it.”

This time his smile undoubtedly spread across his face, almost erasing the creases of a frown near his eyebrows. He tipped the edge of glass against hers in a playful toast and then drank deeply from it. After swallowing, there was a moment where it appeared that he might say something, but he was interrupted abruptly by a clanging of glass, a thumping of feet, fists drumming on tables.

Craning her head, she can see that the Dragon Queen had risen from her seat, her long blonde hair draped over her shoulder and her lips stained from the black-red wine that the Yronwoods sent from the vineyards of Dorne. She raised her glass and the crowd cheered before quieting as she lifted an eyebrow in wait.

The Great Hall was mostly silent, even the most drunk of the Wildlings. The Dragon Queen had that ability, the almost ethereal talent of leveling a crowd with only a stare.

Her voice was both commanding yet pleasant when she finally said loudly, “There is not a man or woman amongst us tonight who does not highly admire and respect King Jon Snow and Lady Sansa Stark.”

Tormund interjected, his voice slurred: “And if there's is one of ye, let me and my knuckles convince ye otherwise!”

The Great Hall erupted briefly into a cacophony of festive cheers and Tormund lifted his goblet in celebration. Daenerys smiled briefly, but the flash in her eyes was enough to quiet the hall rather quickly.

She cleared her throat and then continued, “Both King Snow and Lady Stark have given much. Have given much for family, for country. They are creatures of selflessness.” And then she turned toward them, her cup still raised.

Sansa eyed the woman in front of her, trying rapidly to discern what the motive of this speech was. It was multi-faceted, this she was sure. There was an agenda here, she decided: a speech to endear her to the North, a speech that would show she was a kind and compassionate Queen that they could trust. And yet, there was a sincerity in her eyes, something real and true shining there.

Daenerys smiled firmly at her, locking her eyes with Sansa. Then, slowly and measurably, she said, “Our lives have been hard, all of us here. The War stripped us of many of the things we love, of many of the _people_ we love. We have lost many, have sacrificed much, but these two are some of the greatest amongst us.” Then, her lips curled into a coy smile and she glanced down at Jaime Lannister, who was looking at her with something that Sansa could only describe as affection. Daenerys continued, “But I hope that you find love surprises you in your marriage, King Snow and Lady Stark. It can surprise even the strangest of pairings. And we all could stand with being surprised by love after the Long Night has taken so much.”  

Sansa glided her gaze slowly between Daenerys and Jaime, contemplating the meaning behind the Dragon Queen’s words. A strange thought snaked into her brain: there seemed to be a very real and somehow dangerous possibility that this Valyrian Queen and her Andal husband might have actually… fallen in love? It was a thought that unsettled her for some reason, churned that strange emotion in her chest that had found its way into her body ever since Jon Snow had come back to Winterfell.

Daring a look at Jon, she noticed that he was glowering into his glass, not looking at all at the Dragon Queen. Underneath the table, she nudged his thigh with her knee. His dark eyes flashed questioningly up at her. She tapped his elbow and whispered, “For the gods’ sake, Jon, it’s a toast. Raise your damn glass.”

He blinked at her and then, in response, lifted his glass in the air a fraction of an inch. She rolled her eyes and then glanced back at where the Dragon Queen still stood.

Daenerys, to her credit, did not indicate that she saw Jon Snow’s pouty indifference. Instead, she merely lifted her glass higher and said, “Let us drink to the marriage of these two fine individuals. May all the gods allow you to learn to love one another and give you many sons and daughters.”

The entire hall exploded in a round of raucous shouts and a long guzzle from their glasses.  One of the wildlings picked up a rowdy tune on one of their stringed instruments and soon Tormund was doing some kind of jig on a long banquet table.

It was all a welcome distraction from the gravity and meaning of the Dragon Queen’s words. Sansa sipped slowly on her drink before turning to Jon, trying to measure whether she should say anything to him at all; he was still still glaring rather forlornly into his lap, like he was thinking something over rather intensely.

Finally, she dared a teasing couple of words, “I thought we discussed you should do less brooding and more drinking.”

He looked up at her and his eyes gave her a start: there was a fire in them that was boring into her. Then, he tipped back the entire glass of wine before growling in her direction, “Please send my apologies to our guests, but I am going to retire for the evening.”

He made to stand, but she clasped her hand around his knee, stopping him. “Have you lost your mind?!” She hissed lowly, “Everyone is here for _you_. I know this isn't easy, but by the gods, Jon, at least grin and bear it for a couple more hours.”

“Like you will have to grin and bear our marriage for the years to come?” His retort came so quickly back to her that all she could do was blink in shock. Her hand released from his knee and he rapidly rose to his feet. He offered her a fiery glance and these words before stalking out of the hall: “I hope that you can _learn to love_ me, Sansa Stark. But everyone does make it seem like an impossible task, so I can only wish you the best of luck.”

She watched wide-eyed as he exited the Hall, a mass of dark cloak and moodiness. His dismissal seemed to only be noticed by her, as the rest of the hall was immersed in an impromptu dance and Queen Daenerys and her Lannister husband were engaged in what looked like an entirely flirty conversation.

His words rang loudly in her head: _I hope that you can learn to love me, Sansa Stark_. It was the Queen’s own words he used back at her, like he was parrying a blow back into her face. A blow she wasn’t sure that she had herself struck.

The sudden pinprick of tears burned at the corner of her eyes, and she bit her tongue to try to snap herself out of this sudden fit of emotion. Sansa Stark was no longer the reactionary little girl she had once been, having her feelings hurt by moody, dark-eyed men. She was the heir of Winterfell, full of wolf-blood and Tully-ferocity. And yet, she couldn’t stop herself from rising from her chair and stomping out of the hall after Jon Snow, her mind racing so fast that common sense didn’t have a chance to convince her otherwise.

“Who does he think he is?” She whispered to herself, trudging herself up towards his chambers. Even after exiting the hall, she could hear the loud celebratory chanting of the Free Folk and major Houses of Winterfell. They, obviously, were not half as annoyed as her about the exit of the North’s Region-King as she was, but she still couldn’t shake the fury inside of her.

She stopped in the hallway that led to his chambers, took a couple deep breaths and thought hard. What was the ember of her rage? Anger? Annoyance? Shaking her head, she realized it was none of these in totality. Prodding her heart ever so gently, she drew back when a thought came to her. It was a dark thought, and she felt her fingers tremble so much that she had to clench them in fists.

She, Sansa Stark, was _jealous_.

It was an emotion she had denied herself for a long time. Jealousy would get her nowhere in a world torn apart with war and violence. It was an emotion that she had no use for, and so she had stored it away, kept dusty and underutilized in the shelf-space of her brain. But here it was, showing itself after so long and it was a feeling that she handled it rather clumsily in her chest. She closed her eyes tight, tried not to think of the sadness that dwelled in Jon Snow’s eyes whenever the blonde-haired Queen was mentioned.

“No,” she mumbled through gritted teeth. “No. You cannot be jealous of Jon Snow’s affection. That is ludicrous, Sansa Stark. _Absolutely absurd_.”

Then, curling her fingers so tight that her nails cut in the fleshy part of her palms, she continued to stalk determinedly back up to his chambers.

His room was one of the smaller ones in the Great Keep. Unsurprisingly, he had refused the Lord’s chamber, and instead had taken sleep in the room that Rickon and Bran used to share. She had come to visit him there only on rare occasions, when she needed his signature on a document or if Ghost had been pawing lightly on the door and Jon had been so deep in sleep not to hear the direwolf at his threshold. The room, small and truly meant only for children, was still almost barren in the simplicity that was Jon Snow. It also smelled deeply of him: musky and smoke-tinged.

The door to his bedroom was shut. She rapped on it loudly for only a second before she stormed inside, hardly leaving him the time to grumble, “Who is it?”

The words came out of her mouth before she could stop them, before she could even take stock her surroundings: “I know that this is not the life you wanted, but could you just _behave_ for once in your life? Do you ever think...” she stopped to swallow a sob in her throat “... have you ever thought, for just one second, that I may have feelings as well?”

The room was quiet for a long moment. In the corner, she heard Ghost whimper lightly. And there, standing in the middle of the room, was Jon Snow, staring at her wide-eyed and slightly slack jawed. He was already in a state of undress, his baldric and shirt off, leaving his chest completely bare.

She backed away for a brief moment, suddenly realizing that she might have made a grave mistake. Even though she had seen Jon Snow even more undressed than this many times in her life, she is taken aback with the gravity of being alone with him in his bedroom. And then there was also the look in his eyes, the true heartbreak there and a lick of flame burning in his dark eyes that causes her breath to hitch.

He ignored his state of undress, walked a couple paces towards her, the fire still burning in his gaze. “Your feelings, eh?” His voice was hoarse, frantic. “All I’ve done since coming back to Winterfell is worry about your bloody feelings!”

She blinked and then raised her eyebrows, “What? My feelings? When have my feelings even been a consideration in all of this?”

There was a ruddiness to Jon’s complexion when he takes a step even closer to her. “Aye, your feelings, Sansa Stark. All I’ve done is make sure I tip-toe around your very pointed disappointment in me, make sure that I don’t overstep my bounds as the _bastard_ who you never wanted to marry but have no choice but to do so.” He leaned so close to her she could extend her hand and touch her.

She couldn’t breathe, but still the words out of her mouth were quick when she snapped back at him, “Please forgive me if I can’t find pity in my heart. Like your disappointment in me has not been equally felt! As if I don’t see the heartbreak in your eyes and in your tone every time you talk about Daenerys Targaryen.” She took a step closer to him, looked up in his face, “As if I don’t know I’ll never be the woman that you wished you could take to bed - I’ll never be blonde enough or fair enough or have enough dragon-blood.”

His eyes were on her for a long moment, searching her. The fire that was blazing in his eyes dulled, turned to an expression that she could only decipher as curious. Finally, he stammered out: “What?! What in the name of all the gods are you talking about?”

She rolled her eyes. “Jon, please. Let’s not be petty. We can talk candidly as adults. I know - as does the entire of Westeros - about your past entanglements with the Dragon Queen.”

He blinked at her before saying bemusedly, “Entanglements?”

The two of them exchanged glances and for once Sansa found a completely unguarded expression in his face. All of him seemed abnormally exposed and she felt a strange tingling sensation in her fingertips at the thought of touching him. She swallowed thickly and then said, “Jon, it’s okay. You can be honest with me. I’m not as frail as some might think I am.” She sighed and then gently reached for his hand, curled her fingers around his palm. “I know it’s not easy to let go of someone when you lose them. And I know how dreadfully hard it must be to see them with someone else…”

He sucked in thinly through his teeth at her words and he quickly said, “Do you really know, Sansa?”

She looked into his face and frowned deeply. Was he truly asking her this, after all the things and people and dreams they lost in the Great War and the Long Night? Her head spun, trying to weave together both his seeming bewilderment at her questions and also his accusations. For once in a long while, Sansa Stark was thoroughly confused.

So, finally, she stopped trying to mince her words, said outright, “Jon, I know you are still heartbroken that Daenerys chose Jaime Lannister - of all people - over you. But nothing good can come from brooding over the situation.” He drew back from her as if burned, but she wouldn’t let go of his hand. She squeezed her fingers tighter around his wrist and then implored, “And I know that I’m not at all the type of wife you wanted, but please try to at least pretend that you aren’t completely heartbroken over having to marry me. _Please_. It shall be my only request of you ever again, I promise.”  

Jon was quiet for such a long second that she thought she might have ruined everything, that her silly request for some semblance of affection was ill-wrought. But then, he shook his head and said slowly, “Sansa, for someone so brilliant, you’ve really fooked this one up.”

Her eyebrows knitted together and she opened her mouth to retort with something snarky but he interrupted with, “Sansa, I am not in love with Daenerys. I never have been. I do not… I _wouldn’t_ marry her for all the gold in the kingdom.”

Her mouth closed, slowly. She looked pensively into his face, trying to measure if he was lying to her. But Jon’s face was surprisingly vulnerable in that moment, his eyes clear and honest.

“But, you have said so before,” she said, but her voice came out wavy, unsure. “You have been so obvious about your affections ever since you have come back to Winterfell.” 

“Aye, I have,” Jon said, and his voice was low and full of something else that sent her heart thumping loudly against her ribs. “But it appears that you have completely misinterpreted them, Sansa Stark.” He lifted her hand, the one that was holding his, and held it near his sternum. His eyes bore into her, and if Sansa thought she could think clearly she would swear there was that emotion in them again, the one that she had yet to decipher.

The air in her lungs turned coal-hot and it took all of her breath to say, “I don’t understand. You’ve acted heartbroken every time I’ve mentioned her name.”

He frowned, his eyebrow twinged in thought. “I have not,” he said, his voice still low.

“No, no. You have! Every time we talked about her arrangement and marriage, you’ve seen so forlorn, Jon Snow.”

Biting his upper lip, it looked like he was holding back a frustrated grimace. He brought her hand closer to him so that it was pressed against the bare skin of his collarbone. “I have only been an arse when you so admired what you thought was Daenerys’s heartless marriage. To know that you only aspired to another marriage full of cold common sense. To know that our marriage would only be a matter of calculation and outward appearances.”

“But. But is that not what you want?” His eyes were so dark that she could hardly look at him. Underneath her fingers, she could feel his heart fluttering. “I thought that?” She stopped, swallowed thickly, tried to stop her head from spinning. Then, emphatically, she pleaded, “What are you saying, Jon?”

“I’m saying that you shouldn’t listen to rumor and conjecture, Sansa Stark,” he said. “I’m saying that even though they all say that magic died after the war, you have somehow... bewitched me, Sansa Stark.”

Her whole body shook, she could feel the trembling all the way down to her heels.

His lowered his gaze at her and the frown on his face deepened. Slowly, he continued: “It was my shame when I left Winterfell to fight the war.” He stumbled for the right words for a second and then continued, “You were my sister in blood then, but I couldn’t trick my heart into believing that. So I carried that shame, held it deep inside me. It was my shame when I hated Petyr Baelish not because he was the scum of the earth but because I know you had consented to a marriage with him.” Then, carefully, gingerly, he lifted her fingers and pressed them to his lips. “It was my shame even after we found out that I am no child of Eddard Stark, because I shouldn’t feel the way I did about you. I thought after the war, it would fade, that I could return and see your face and it could all be a clean slate.”

He looked at her as if expecting an answer or some sort of interjection. But for once in a long while, she was speechless. She wasn’t even sure if a response were even an option right now, since her entire brain was occupied by the one phrase: _You have somehow... bewitched me, Sansa Stark._

When she only stared at him wide-eyed, he sighed. Lowering her hand away from his lips, he continued, “But it’s of no use. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to abandon this feeling, Sansa. And you have become a creature of pragmatism. I know you feel nothing of the same. That is quite fine. It is my shame to bear.”  

She was silent for a long moment. Her head swam and when she shifted, she found she was so light-headed that her knees gave way. He caught her before she tripped herself, but that only served to press her more full against, him, her forehead leaning against his clavicle. A sudden realization dawned on her: the only thing in her stomach was wine and it was causing the floor to keep opening beneath her, trying to swallow her in a spinning darkness.

“I don’t understand,” she said weakly. “I don’t understand at all.”

And perhaps Jon was saying something, perhaps he was telling her everything once again. She couldn’t be sure because her body fell over the edge, tipping her into a world of swirling black, the world outside vignetting to unconsciousness.

 

\--

 

For the first time in recent memory, Sansa Stark awoke because she felt like she was boiling. There were memories of being a young girl and waking when the North was still in summer and being so warm so had to throw off all her covers. But long gone were those days, replaced only by the icy death-filled days of Winter. The sun had become a forgotten thing, and Sansa Stark had learned to freeze her heart and ice her nerves, had become a creature made for winter.

But when she regained consciousness, she found her body slick with sweat, all of her hot like she had taken ill with a fever. She blinked awake, staring at the ceiling for a brief moment, trying to decide where she was and if everything she could remember before losing consciousness was all a dream.

 _It had to be_ , she thought. The entire sequence of events felt odd and awkward in her brain, like she was trying to fumble the pieces together. So, yes, it had to be all a fever dream, one that she had broken out of just now. She would awake, wash her face, and busy herself for wedding preparations.

She sat up, put her hand to her forehead, pushed back the sweaty strands from her face. Then, she pulled the furs off of her, swung her legs around the bed. But then, a realization came to her quickly: “This isn’t my bed,” she managed to croak before a voice cut through the room.

“Aye, sorry about that. You were dead on your feet and you were trembling. I thought it was best to let you rest here instead of drag you half across the Keep.”

She froze, looked up slowly. Sure enough, there he was, Jon Snow, wearing only his smallclothes and holding a pair of his finest boots. He was leaned over them, shining them with a polish-stained rag. He looked up at her over a mess of dark curls. There was something sheepish in his expression, almost apologetic.

The fire in the room had been stoked to a rather sizable blaze, and the light was soft on his face. The war had etched scars on Jon’s face, and she realized that she had memorized them: the long line that ran from his forehead to his cheek, the gash that ran along his jawline, the slice of his eyebrow.

She quickly took stock of herself, realized that he had taken off the wool overcoat of her dress and she was only in the dress’s simple linen lining.  Smoothing down her hair, she took a deep breath and said, “I’ve made a fool of myself…”

“No.” His voice was firm. She looked into his face to see a stern expression there. “No. You have not. It’s… I am the one who is a fool.” He sighed, dropped his boot and said, “It was selfish of me to tell you that. If you wish, we can pretend like that conversation never happened. I can take it to my grave. Just say the word and I will do it.”

She frowned, heavy in thought. His words came back to her, so heavy they squeezed her lungs: he had pledged no lust for the Dragon Queen, his gaze turned only towards her when he revealed his secret (what he had called his shame) with a baleful pair of eyes and an honestly so clean there was no way to subvert it.

There was no way around. It was no fever dream.

Jon Snow had confessed his devotion for… her, Sansa Stark.

Finally, she spoke, her voice meek: “How long?” She met his gaze before adding, “How long have you felt this way, Jon?”

He leaned back, his eyes evaluating her. “Are you sure you want to know?”

She nodded her head, managed to squeak out a small, “Yes. Tell me.”

“Ever since I’ve had the chance to know you,” he said after a long pause. “You know we were never close in our youth. I knew you only in fragments when we were still children.”

She placed her feet on the floor and the coolness there soothed her. Thinking back to when they were still children of Eddard Stark, Warden of the North, was a strange sensation, like trying to remember a dream that had been dreamt many years ago. Everything felt fuzzy, surreal, like she was imagining another person’s life, like her body was placed into the skin of someone she had never known.

“I was a spoiled brat,” she said and then gave him a wry grin. “I could see why you never got to know me. The woman I am now doesn’t want to know that person either.”

He couldn’t held a small breathy chuckle, but he shook his head. “You were not a brat.” When he caught her eye, he smiled crookedly, “Okay, you were a bit of a brat, but I was as well. And first and foremost - I see this now - you were a dreamer. You always wanted something better, something brighter. You fought for those things until you got them.”

“And then I realized they were nothing like I thought. I realized that what I wanted was what I always had.”

“Aye, and then you fought for them,” he said quickly. “You fought and you won. And you’ll never stop fighting, Sansa. You are smart as a tack and clever and at the same time you are kind and funny and good.” He shrugged, picked his boot up started polishing it with a fervor. “But you’ve always been all those things, and when I found that out the one day you rode into Castle Black… I was a goner.”

The room became silent. She watched him for a long moment, watched as the small muscles in his hands worked to scrub black the scuff marks in his boot. The man in front of her was a man now, there was no doubt about that. Gone was the teenager that she left in the Summer, when they both thought they shared a father. In his stead, a man had grown, Stark-dark and with a soldier’s build.

And what had become of her? She had grown weary of looking in mirrors. There were lines on her face now, ones that shouldn’t belong to women of her age. But war had added so much to her, had whittled her down. She was too thin, this she knew. Her eyes were always circled in dark lines. The place where the tip of a wight’s blade had found her cheek was a pink slash, slicing through freckles and making her face uneven.

There was also the men who had carved themselves inside her body. She could feel them all, could feel the way they had placed their hands on her body, had placed themselves _inside_ her body. But no, she blocked those images. To dwell on them would be fruitless. What was done was done, and the path to self-pity was one that would only leave her to being made useless to her name, to Winterfell, to the people who thought of her as a leader of sorts. Nevertheless, every part of her had been snapped, twisted, marred, all the way from her lips to her womb.

So none of this had made any sense to her. None of his confessions made any sense. Why would a man chose her now, now when she so scarred, so broken?

A long time ago, she had closed her heart away to the thought of being loved. She had deemed that part of her unnecessary, and so that part of Sansa Stark had died. She wasn’t sure if it could be resurrected.

“Are you still… amenable to going forward with tomorrow?” He asked, breaking the silence. His voice was very small.  

She squeezed her eyebrows together. “Tomorrow?” And then it dawned on her: “With the wedding?!” He looked up at her, and the pain in his eyes was shiny-real. A sob rose in her throat, but she swallowed it down. She stood, shakily, but she needed to move, to pace.

“Of course, Jon. Of course I'm _amenable_ ,” She said, moving from the fireplace to the bed and then repeating the pattern. The room was small, so she only had a few paces to each spot. “I just… I don’t think I can guarantee you what you’re looking for, Jon.”

“I know you don’t feel the same. It’s fine, Sansa. We do not have to speak on this again.”

She raised her hand, bidding him to stop. “I never said I did not feel the same.” When she saw his dark, hopeful eyes, she quickly added, “I mean that I don’t know how I feel. The truth is that… feeling is a luxury that I wasn’t able to afford recently. I only mean that I don’t think I am the woman that you think I am.” She stopped mid-pace, looked up at him. Her breath was quick, she could feel her pulsing hammering in her temples. “I am a broken woman, with little to offer you. Yes, politically, I hold fast to Winterfell. But there is no promise with heirs in me. I am not good… with emotion anymore.” She took a few paces forward towards him. “If you are looking for a sweet, good wife, I will not be what you are looking for. The _men_ , Jon. The men who had touched me are the worst kind. They have done things to my body.” She stopped before her words tumbled frantic out her mouth: “I fear that the woman you have fallen in love with is all myth and that I will disappoint you greatly. I am only broken, Sansa Stark is just a broken wo-”

He cut her short. Standing from where he sat, he rose so forcefully that the stool tipped over onto the ground. The boots were still in his hand when he rushed forward, grabbed gently to her face. His lips crashed into hers, warm and earnest, his fingers pressed against the nape of her neck.

At first, she was completely frozen. She could feel his touch, but her body wouldn’t respond. It could not, she was sure. She had been kissed before, but never like this, not with someone who’s honesty so was clear and true that it shone through their body and made her lungs feel warm.

She had kissed men before, yes. But men were creatures of simple desires and ulterior motives - neither of these things were true in Jon Snow. His kiss was unguarded, gentle and fierce together, full of something she had never felt: desire.

He pulled back, one kissing her just once more on her bottom lip before looking into her eyes.

Sheepishly, he breathed, “I am sorry for that, Sansa.”

“Sorry for kissing me?”

“Aye. That was improper.”

She raised an eyebrow, said, “What’s improper is that your boot is getting polish all over me.”

He blinked at her and then quickly threw the boots down on the ground. “I’m sorry… did it ruin your dress?”

She shook her head and said, “No. I mean, yes.” Shrugging, she extended her hands forward and touched his face, curled her finger around a strand of his ebony hair that fell in his eyes. “Forgive me, Jon. I’m… not good with being a creature of affection. I shall get better, but forgive me for now.”

He leaned into her touch and said, “There’s nothing to forgive.”

Standing there for only another second, she released her touch, walked over to the end of the bed and grabbed her wool overcoat. Slipping it over her shoulders, she quickly laced the ties near the bodice.

“You should get some sleep, Jon Snow,” she said, moving towards the door. “I’ve heard that you shall marry in the morn.”

He was watching her with those baleful eyes once again, as if he was trying to figure out how exactly he should respond to her. Then, he swallowed thickly, the knot in his throat visibly bobbing, and he said, “You should as well.”

She smiled at him and then went to him, offered him the quickest kiss on the corner of his mouth.

“Should we forget the words I have said to you?” He asked, his voice so quiet and sad it almost rendered her heart in two.

She considered for a long moment and then said, “No. We shall not forget.” She turned to leave, but before she crossed the threshold of his door, she said behind her, “ _I_ will not forget, Jon Snow.”


	3. The Walls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laying the coverlet over the back of the room’s dresser, she took a long swill of wine and then turned to him. Then, raising an eyebrow, she started to work on unbuckling her dress and said, “You’ve got to learn to wipe that forlorn expression off your face. Now, drink some wine and try to act like this doesn't pain you.”
> 
> His frown became deeper and some of his face paled. “Sansa,” he said, and this time his voice was firmer, a hint of danger, “what are you doing?”

Surprisingly, she slept. This would mark her third marriage, and so the jitters that followed her around prior to her unfortunate trysts were non-existent. The girl once known as Sansa Stark had dissolved away from her, replaced only by the steel of this resolution: marriage was only a contract, one wrapped up in fantasy to stall the fears of the children who had to enter into those agreements. She no longer had those fantasies, so her sleep was deep and uneventful.

But when she woke when the sun was only an orange seam against the horizon, she couldn’t shake that fact that this felt different. She washed her face in the quiet of her room, blinked back against the cool water and stared at the mottled reflection of her face in the dresser’s mirror. There was a faint half-moon of forever-bruise that circled the Tully-blue of her eyes. The scar that zagged across her eyebrow was a pale gray in the morning light. Gone was the summer child who left Winterfell so many years ago, and here replaced was a weathered woman. Sighing, she dried her face and started brushing out her hair.

When her chambermaid entered an hour later, she had already dressed herself, was hemming the bottom of Arya’s dress, and said, “Oh, Lysara, thank the gods you’re here.” She pushed a hair pin further into her the crown of braid encircling her head. “Could you fetch Arya - and _wake her_ if she’s still dozing - and make sure that she actually washes her face, today? She knows she needs to be in my solar before noon so that we can make sure that she has actually brushed her hair.”

The chambermaid - Lysara - blinked at her, still obviously bleary-eyed from sleep. It dawned on Sansa immediately that the day was still new for most of the world. She had grown used to ignoring any sort of tiredness, and forgot that not everyone in the Kingdom of Westeros awoke early enough to see the night bleed away from the morning.

 “Ye… yer already dressed, m’lady?” Lysara finally said, her words still quiet from the dregs of her sleep.

 Sighing, Sansa reached across the space and placed a hand on Lysara’s arm. “Apologies, Lysara. I think we need to break the fast before we start full speed ahead. Could you make us some tea and bring it up?” She squeezed the maid’s shoulder and then tried a coy wink. “And make sure that it’s strong tea. We’ll need it today.”

 Lysara took a second to process what she was implying (a stiff hit of the grain liquor that Tormund and the freefolk always had strapped to their hip) before she nodded, grinned shortly and went on her way towards the kitchens.

She watched Lysara close the door before quickly gathering Arya’s dress, her sewing supplies, and rushed out of her room. “If your problem won’t come to you, you come to the problem,” she mumbled, juggling the folds of fabric and pins in her arms. “Arya Stark, why are you forever the problem?”

The hallways of Winterfell were not as cold as usual. The Spring had warmed the once-frozen stone, warmed the hot springs to almost boiling. Her wedding dress wasn’t the heavy wool that made up her second bride’s ensemble. Instead, it was a crisp gray taffeta, the Stark wolf embroidered in white across the hem. It was, for lack of a better word, very excellent optics: no one would doubt the family marrying today was completely and utterly one full of wolf-blood, a Northern house in creed and fervor.

She kept her strides quiet in the hallway, trying to sneak her way into Arya’s room. Her sister was known to be able to hold her drink with even the most hardiest of free folk, but last night had been rather uproarious. The last thing she needed was a grumpy and very hungover Arya Stark.

She was almost to the her sister’s room; she rounded a corner, saw the doorway of Arya’s room, set her mouth in a firm line in preparation to deal with a rather obstinate sister. But as she had almost there, her step was halted immediately, her foot literally jerked away from landing.

A thin yelp escaped her lips and she quickly registered two things. One: there was a pair of arms around her midsection pulling her towards the maid’s dumbwaiter closet. Two: she needed to fight, immediately.

Before she could even think, she swung a clenched fist broadly, white-knuckled. She made contact with something - someone - instantly. It was a jaw, this she was sure, could feel the perpendicular bone. The person she hit blew out a sharp hiss of air and before she could let loose a long scream, someone whispered loudly at her, “Sansa, for gods’ sake! It’s just me! It’s Jon!”

It didn’t register in time, and another swing was already in the air. This time, though, her balled fist didn’t meet the jutting edge of chin, but instead the calloused palm of Jon Snow’s hand. He held her firm, and she froze, her once-struggling body stilled in his grip.

The room was dark and she blinked rapidly to adjust her eyes. A dull glow of light ran up the dumbwaiter shaft and into the closet, and at first all she could see was the faint outline of his frame. Slowly, his face became clearer, even if it was hard to gauge his expression. What she definitely could see the mark she left on his face - it was going to leave a mark, even a bruise, and she bit her tongue to keep herself from crying out.

She attempted to collect herself, but she could feel her breath turning heavy in her chest. Her heart was hammering so hard against her sternum she was afraid it might crack a rib. Nevertheless, she tried to keep a hushed and slightly irritated tone when she said, “What exactly do you think you’re doing, Jon? I know you’ve spent a long time with wildlings, but you don’t actually have to steal your bride south of where the wall used to stand.”

He blinked at her before a small bemused smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “I know _that_ ,” he grumbled before adding, “although Tormund was genuinely upset that I had no plans to indulge in this free folk tradition.”

His arm was still encircled around her waist, and for some reason she was acutely aware of it. However, she didn’t move away, but instead took a step closer, and gingerly touched the spot that her fist had found. When he winced, she said, her voice a mixture of teasing and scolding, “Well, if you had no plans to kidnap me, then you’re going to wear a bruise for no reason. And Old Nan would be disappointed: she always said it was bad luck to see the bride on the wedding day.”

“Aye, I do. And that’s why I had to be sneaky about meeting you.” He dipped his head closer to her, and she could see the thin line of a scar that halved his eyebrow. “The last thing we need is further gossip for the entire of Wintertown if they knew that we had met before the vows.”

She frowned into his face, searching for his intent. It was unlike Jon Snow to be so rash, and there was a look in his eye that seemed to reveal that he was trying to get to a finer point. Raising an eyebrow, she said, “I know you didn’t risk my wrath and the yapping mouths of everyone in town just to bid me good morning. What’s… what’s going on, Jon?”

He opened his mouth for a brief second, but words didn’t come out. And then he shook his head, trying to fish for something to say. It seemed, once again, that Jon Snow found his tongue tied.

“Jon?” Nervousness flipped in her stomach. “Is everything okay? Are _you_ okay?”

“I don’t know,” he breathed, and his hand pushed against the small of her back, bringing her closer to him. Something strange burned in her chest, a mixture between panic and something strangely pleasant.

She wrapped her fingers around his forearm, gripped him firmly. Lightly, she shook him, and said, “Jon, what’s happening? Are you in danger?”

He blinked, his face blank from what looked like surprise and then shook his head vigorously. “No, it’s not that,” he said and breathed a small chuckle. “There are no battles to be fought today. Not yet, at least.” And then, his smile dissolved and he added, “I just. I should have never had burdened you with everything that… that I told you last night. That wasn’t right of me.”

Shaking her head, she said firmly, “You’re always so worried about the noble thing to do, Jon. You don’t ever think about the moment when maybe there’s no right answer.” She reached up, tucked a black curl away from his eyes. “There’s a lot of gray in this world. I would know. I’ve lived in it. I _grew up_ in it.” His eyes were on her intently, searching her, and there was a sadness shining in his gaze once again, the typical malaise that always seemed to haunt him.

“If you want no part of this marriage now. Now knowing what you know?” He cleared his throat, shifted his eyes away from her. A momentum was growing her chest, a loud roar of something almost feral, a mix between impatience and something far more carnal. Finally, he said, lowly, “Knowing that I feel the way I do and I shouldn’t. No god - old or new - should allow that-”

“Oh, _fuck_ the gods,” she growled and the feeling exploded in her chest, turned into something fiery and raw and she reached up and grabbed Jon Snow by the scruff of his neck, pulled him down into her mouth.

His lips were stiff and still against hers for a long second, and a tiny part of her brain blared in warning: _you’ve been foolish, Sansa Stark, a silly, emotional girl once again_. Almost hastily, she tried to pull back, to uncurl her fingertips from the downy hair at the edge of his neck. But, then, right before she unfurled herself fully from him, he moaned into her mouth, pressed his hand firmly against the curve in her lower spine and brought her much, much closer to his body.

So close ever part of her chest flamed in some strange feral fire. So close that her thoughts dissolved into something like warm wine.

And finally, finally, his mouth on hers and her winter-hardened defenses melted away, she could see all the moments, all of them in front of like the sun had peeled away from a dark, thick cloud. These moments, buried so far inside her heart she was sure they weren’t real, they were just silly notions that had to be pushed further and further away from her heart. These moments, they would kill her she was sure of it, because there were so much of a giddy, warm love that they couldn’t do her any good, not the word that was at war with the dead.

These moments:

_The one night she awoke in a cold sweat, her throat raw from screaming. The ghost of Ramsay Bolton’s fingertips on her throat -- all a dream, but nevertheless, her whole body shook. Jon, rushing in her solar, hair askew, and when he saw her face, he said nothing, just sat on the edge of her bed and held her held her head against his chest as her hot tears fell silently, angrily, unwelcome._

_One evening where they took supper in the Maester’s Turret, pouring over the maps and topography of the North as to figure how best to navigate the still angry Karhold. The way he gently teased her when her face burned in rage at the unwillingness of the Karstarks to bend the knee, and the way his teasing grin made a flame of something strange blossom in her chest._

_One when he left for the Dragon Queen, her hands firm against his arm, her eyes begging and an ache deep in her bones. She had thought the desire for him to stay was only because she never wanted her family to leave Winterfell again. “I married Baelish for this reason; so you won’t have to leave,” she told him. “I married him for the Vale to protect us. To protect_ **_you._ ** _” But it was all a bit of a lie, she knows it now: She married Petyr Bealish to try to relinquish this strange desire inside her gut when Jon Snow’s fingers found hers in tiny moments, to try to be rid of the way her stomach twisted delightfully every time he smiled at her._

It dawned on her, his mouth against her own, that this shame that he held so acutely inside his own chest was her own shame. Hers had been buried, deeply and strategically. Sansa Stark was not a woman to be taken by folly and emotion, and especially not with emotion that would be the end of both her and the only family she knew to her. Morals had withered away in importance; she found little inside of her that recoiled at the thought of them both once sharing a father under pretence. But, she was a woman of practicality now, not one influenced by this strange and wonderful man’s sudden and unexpected presence in her life.

Her world had been at war. Vengeance was needed for her family name. She hadn’t time for the strange, confusing emotions she had felt for Jon Snow. So, she had hid them deep inside herself. And suddenly they rose from the dark loom of her heart, burning hot in her chest, burning hot in her mouth where his lips were against hers.

A warm sensation coiled close to her midsection. When the tip of his tongue found the outside of her mouth, she opened her lips with a groan.

She had kissed men before. Once, she had imagined that kissing was something sacred, something you shared like you share a very important secret. She had learned, however, that all physicality could be used strategically. Men could move armies, she thought, but she could move her mouth just so and make things fall into place just so. She remembered Baelish’s tongue crawl into her mouth, his palms clenched so tight against her thigh that it left red finger-sized imprints against her freckled-flesh. Ramsay Bolton used her like a cruel warrior brandishes a sword: utilitarian and lethally.

But this was different, completely and utterly different. Jon’s body burned against her own like a live coal, and he tasted like a mixture of something smoky and the almost metallic grit of blood. She was acutely aware of each movement of his body, of her own body, but she wasn’t quite sure whose body belonged to her or to him or to the both of them.

 _This is ridiculous_ , a small whisper-quiet part of her brain says amongst the burny lust of the rest of her thoughts. _You are not a creature made for romance, Sansa Stark. You don’t feel this way, you_ **_cannot_ ** _feel this way_.

Nevertheless, she could do nothing about it. The feelings were pressing into her and her whole body was aching and burning and deliciously alive. Jon showed little to no momentum of stopping; his hand was firmly wrapped around her waist and the other pressed lightly across her face. It’s only when his fingers began to coil around the strands of her hair that she pulled back, quickly.

His eyes were wide as saucers, immediately full of the angst that always haunted him. “Sansa,” he stumbled and raked a hand over his face hurriedly, like he was trying to erase something. “Sansa, that was… I am sorry.”

Immediately, she saw it, something that she knew that he had kept for a long time and it was just now being unearthed. Here is was in front of her: Jon Snow would always be a bastard, if only in his own mind. No matter his blood, his birthright, it didn’t matter. She could see it shining bright in his gaze: the thought that he deserved none of what he had received, including her affections.

So, quickly, she placed a hand on his face and scolded teasingly, “You were about to muss my hair, Jon Snow.” Her thumb found the corner of his turned-down mouth. “And I can’t have that. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I’m getting married today.”

His eyebrows raised and a very small grin alighted on his face. “Aye, I’ve heard the rumor,” he mumbled and leaned gently into her touch. “Coincidentally, I am getting married as well.”

For a long moment, they shared a silent look, a ghost of a grin on both their faces. Then, slowly, she untangled herself from his arms before quipping over her shoulder, “And brush your hair, Jon Snow. You’re a king now after all.”

The sound of his deep chuckle rang in her gut like a warm wash of wine, and suddenly her heart was in her throat. She had to suppress a grin from spreading across her face as she stalked to her Arya’s room to finish the last mending before she married again, before she married hopefully for the last time.

\--

The actual wedding ceremony was a blur. This was not new; every ceremony of hers had seemed infinitesimally short, like time compressed, like it was held in her lungs and exhaled in a single breath. This she did observe: the actual vows were exchanged to a large and bustling crowd by the weirwood tree that had stood tall in the middle of the godswood. Ayra was trying to look irritated in her too-fancy velvet dress, but she was biting back a frustrated grin. Daenerys Targaryen stood proud with her Lannister husband wearing a long black dress.

She had a distinct impression that Jon’s face was drawn into a concerned and self-conscious expression during the entire exchange of vows, searching her own eyes for some sort of objection. However, she was also aware that she had given him nothing back in terms of an answer. Her face was stone, the words and vows she said were mechanical in nature. It was beyond her control, her body shut down, her mind blanked. Marriage had never been kind to her, and her body knew it even if her mind tried to tell her that this time it was different, this time she could risk caring. But Sansa Stark had been toughened by the Great War, her heart opened only in calculated moves, and so when she heard the cheers and Jon lifted her towards the wedding feast, she shut her eyes tight, tried to breathe, but her heart hammered apoplectically in her chest. When Jon whispered lowly in ear, “Is something wrong, Sansa?” all she could do was shake her head curtly with a clenched jaw.

The Great Hall had been set up for the wedding feast and the decorations had been done in the traditional northern spartan fashion: the only showcase of finery was the velvet drapery of the new Stark crest (a white wolf with blood-red eyes) and a few garlands made from pine needles and blue roses. Although there had been offers from the crownlands to bring up golden wreaths and dragonglass ornaments, they had been refused. Jon had agreed with her that there should be no doubt that this was a marriage for the North, this was a ceremony in front of the old gods, the ancestors of the First Men, for a people whose only words were the warning that _winter was coming_.

The crowd was lively to say the least. The Free Folk, although they knelt to no one, would forever pledge their loyalty to Jon Snow, and they were especially enthusiastic about the marriage in general. The fact of the matter was that the men and women she saw in the hall were many of the same who stood shoulder to shoulder with her at the walls of Winterfell when the White Walkers tried their best to overcome the world of men. It dawned on her that perhaps the Free Folk might feel some loyalty to her as well, that this strange red-headed Queen was worth some salt.

The Free Folk also brought casks of fermented milk, and the entire hall was feeling its effects rather quickly. Arya had threatened that she would change from her dress to a pair of breeches, and she had already. She had sauntered to Jon and Sansa’s table with a drunk smirk on her face, and said with a slurred tongue, “Well, this is thoroughly awkward.”

Sansa raised an eyebrow at her and risked a glance at Jon. He was pursing his lips in a thin line, staring ahead and tipping back a glass of wine.

But then, swirling a glass of fermented milk, Arya added, “But I’m happy for you two. Knowing that is keeps the dragon queen,” she spat the last words before rolling her eyes and swallowing a large mouthful of drink,  “- out of our hair for a while does seem to be an added bonus."

It was as close of a congratulations that Arya Stark was going to offer, and Sansa found that the words felt warmer inside of her than she had expected. Smiling up at her sister, Sansa said, "Thank you, Arya. Now, could you try to behave tonight?"

Arya's only response was sticking out her tongue. When Gendry Baratheon subsequently snuck up from behind her and grabbed her by the waist, Arya squealed in both anger and delight.

"Mind if I borrow your sister for a dance?" He asked both Sansa and Jon, but it was only a courtesy and he didn't even wait for an answer before he was dragging Arya away even when she lightly protested that "dancing is dumb"

"You can borrow our sister for marriage if you'd like," Sansa grumbled before downing another glass of wine. She reached for the pitcher for a quick refill. Jon's hand wrapped gently around her wrist before she could grab it.

Her eyes flickered up to his and when she met his dark, forlorn gaze, it suddenly dawned on her: they were married now, truly, and she was now a wife once again. A flurry of hot panic rose in her throat and she was sure that it was painted all over her face because Jon said, "Sansa, talk to me. What is wrong? You know I'm pretty much useless at figuring out emotion but even I know something is wrong."

She tried to will away the wave of uneasiness coursing through her veins. "I'm fine," she said shortly. She shook off his hand, grabbed the pitcher and poured herself another stout glass. She hated to resort to it, but she was sure that alcohol would dull the feeling, would quench the anxiety swimming in her gut. Jon's frown felt like a hot iron against the side of her face, but she did her best to ignore it.

The rest of the evening was full of toasts (including one from Brienne of Tarth who was stone-cold sober in a room of inebriated celebrants). After the fourth glass of wine, her mind felt deliciously muddy, and she even leaned over and laughed when Tormund arrived at their table with his own rather lewd offering of congratulations.

Jon, however, was not amused. He glanced at her, his eyes full of worry.

"If you want to leave, you can," he whispered down to her after Tormund took his exit. "You don't have to stay."

She raised an eyebrow, grinning. "Don't be dumb, Jon." Her tongue felt thick and strange in her mouth and she was certain her speech was slurred. Nevertheless, she continued, "We can't deny our guests the bedding ceremony."

His face paled at the mention and he shook his head ravenously. "Over my cold dead body will they do anything of the sort."

She laughed outright and he must have been surprised by this because his eyebrow lifted in response. She laid a hand on his knee and said, "Don't be such a spoil sport. It's just a bit of fun after all."

He blinked bemusedly at her; this apparently was not the kind of response he had expected from Sansa Stark. And then, he said flatly, "You're drunk."

She was actually in the midst of another sip of wine when he said this. She swallowed and then nodded fervently. "Aye, I am. As is almost everyone here, save yourself and Brienne." Reaching over towards the pitcher, she topped off his glass of wine. "So I suggest you drink up! You only get married once! Or, in my case, four times." She emitted a little giggle before leaning her palm against his knee with more pressure.

He glared at her before stating, "I have no interest in... bedding you while you are too drunk to even know what's happening." His eyes changed, turned gentle and he added, "It isn't right. You deserve better, Sansa."

Her heart dropped into her chest. His words sobered her instantly and she swallowed a lump of strange emotion in her throat. She released her flirtatious grip against his leg because it suddenly felt contrived, below her and below Jon.

Then, quietly, sheepishly, she said, "I'm... I think I'm a little frightened."

Her honesty seemed to hit him like a slap in the face. Jon stared at her for a long moment before stating, "You're frightened of me."

Maybe he meant it as a question, but it didn't sound like it. He was stating a fact, as if it didn't surprise him, as if he suspected it all along. Like he always knew she would be afraid of this man who was a bastard to two houses. A man who was once dead. A man whose greatest shame was loving the woman that had contractually agreed to marry him. His suspicions were all true, or at least Sansa was sure this is what he thought in the brief moment it took for her to respond.

"Not of you. I'm not frightened of you at all, Jon,” she said, hastily, shaking her head. The wine was making her thoughts foggy, incomprehensible, but she stammered out, "No, that's not it. I'm frightened of... well, marriage has been hard for me. Being... touched by a man has never been... pleasant for me." She fluttered her eyes gingerly up to his, "And it should be pleasant, right?”

His eyes were very dark and he almost-growled, "Aye, it should be."

There was something in the timbre of his voice that caught her off guard, a huskiness that reached in and coiled something warm inside her stomach. She took a sip of her wine just to keep herself from emitting some strange noise from high in her throat. Then, placing her glass on the table, she said pointedly, avoiding Jon’s gaze, “I’m trying, Jon. I can’t promise that I can fix everything that has been… broken from me all these years.”

“I don’t want you to promise that, Sansa,” He said, his voice so low that she almost couldn’t hear him, she was sure no one else could hear him. And, almost shyly, he reached across the space towards her, wrapped his hand around her own. He squeezed gently and she flickered her gaze back up at him. Then, again lowly, “You don't have to promise me anything. I… admire you greatly. I admire you just the way that you are.”

He rose right after saying that to greet Tormund’s lumbering frame, which if Jon hadn't of caught him, would have stumbled drunkenly onto the feast table and would have split it unceremoniously in half.

She sat for a long moment, her mind mulling over what Jon had just said. A ghost of a grin spread across her face before she could have stopped it, and for once in a very long time, a peace moved through her bones like a wash of wine, like the flush of what she had always suspected love might feel like.

\--

The bedding ceremony - despite Jon's very vocal opposition and his best efforts to avert it - did happen. It was impossible to stop the northerners in their gusto, and the fact of the matter is that the life had been brutal for all of them and events like weddings had been scarce. So, now that the winter was over and there was mead and meat once again, they were ruthless in their joy.

Tormund led the charge with lifting her in the air, and whispered gruffly in her ear, “I promise none of these bastards will touch you in places he idn’t supposed to.”

She rolled her eyes and snapped, “I think I can fend for myself, Tormund Giantsbane. Now, lift me on your shoulders and let’s get this nonsense over with.”

The wilding winked at her, said, “Now, that’s the spirit, Sansa. You’re a much better sport than the grump of a husband you’ve got.”

Jon was, in fact, extremely grumpy. He had taken a swing at Gawen Glover when he tried to grab a handful of Sansa’s skirts. She had laid a hand on his arm, gave him a warning glance, and then she shouted, “Do we have Queen Daenerys’s permission to leave the feast?”

Daenerys lifted an eyebrow, seemed to risk a glance at Jaime Lannister (who merely shrugged as if to say, “It _is_ the North after all”), and then said, “I have no objections if neither you nor the King do.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Sansa saw that Jon was about to open his mouth to argue. So, quickly, she said, “Alright, you devils. Go ahead and have your fun or else I shall never have peace.”

With that, and only a very verbal grumble on Jon’s part, they lifted both of them into the air and carried them across the Great Hall and into the Keep, towards the Lord’s bedchamber. She had insisted that Jon eventually move out of the tiny bedroom he once took up residence in. The Lord’s bedchambers had been a dusty place, one she had not taken either since they had returned to Winterfell. The room echoed with the ghosts of Ned and Catelyn Stark every time she entered; each time,  she had merely patted down the musty furniture coverings before locking the room tight again.

But the room had been prepared by several of the oldest servants who had lived through the long night. When she arrived on the shoulders of both Tormund Giantsbane, Beren Tallhart, Gawen Glover and a variety of other young northern lads, she was almost-gently placed on the ground right outside the door.

Gawen Glover reached a meaty fist and pounded at the door, and then shouted, “Aye! King Jon, we ‘ave your blushing bride.”

The door was opened with a forceful gusto and there was Jon Snow, standing with a fiery expression. The drunken smile plastered on the young Glover’s face dissolved quickly and when Jon said in a very low, rumbly voice, “If you have any value for your own life, Gawen Glover of Deepwood Motte - and the rest of you for that matter - you all will leave us to peace.”

She thought of the bedding ceremonies that she had seen in her childhood, too young to truly understand what was happening: the raucous crowd gathered around the bedchambers, offering chants and jeers that had pricked her girlish sensibilities. At the time, she hadn’t an idea what was happening behind the closed doors, but it always seemed chaotic, carnal.

And Jon was to have nothing of it. In fact, the woman who had gathered him and placed him at the bedchambers were already gone, not a spec of evidence of them. He must have offered them the same kind of threat, and so there was no fighting him on this, she was certain.

Tormund laid a hand on Jon’s shoulder and said, “Well, I suspected nothing less from you. No fun, not t’all.” He leaned over, winked at Sansa before saying, “But I don’t wanna risk his wrath, not today. You have a good time with your surly husband, Sansa.” Tormund turned to the other men, raised a goblet of fermented milk that he had someone managed to juggle whilst carrying her and shouted, “Come men! You heard your king. Plus, there’s good drink and meat and tits back where we came from!”

The men seemed to perk up at the suggestion of the continued feast and soon they were off, hollering down the echoey chambers back towards the Great Hall.  She watched them leave, a small smirk on her face, before turning back to Jon. He was still standing the doorway, his typical forlorn expression on his face, and he was looking pointedly _not_ at her.

For a brief second, she thought he was going to bid her goodnight, to turn her away. A small part of her brain said, _As he should - you’re not the wife a King should have._ But she bristled herself, stood a bit straighter and then stated, “I hope they dusted the room - it was in a rather sad state the last night I went inside.”

Slowly, he looked at her, his eyes turning from steel to something darkly afire. “It’s fine,” he said, his voice low and almost shy. “I mean… I’ll head back to my room, but you should sleep here tonight.”

“I plan to,” she snapped quickly. “And I think you should as well, Jon.”

The dark fire in his gaze flamed for a second and then receded. “Sansa,” he breathed, almost a groan. And then he shook his head and said, “I… we don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to do.”

She met his eyes and a small jolt of unwelcome panic flooded into her bloodstream. But, she bit in back and she said, “I’m not going to do anything I don’t want to do.” She hoped her voice was firm, even it felt a little shaky in her throat. She laid a hand on his arm and she gave him a wry grin. “In fact, I pity the man who makes a Stark do something that they don’t want to do.”

Regarding her hand for a second, he nodded stiffly. There was no smile to offer her at her small joke. Instead, he stepped aside, showing the inside of the Lord’s bedchambers.

Gingerly, she brushed past him and into the room. The entire room was aglow in a wash of warm firelight, the hearth crackling with a lively blaze. The large bed that took up almost the entire back wall had been made up with furs and some freshly-laundered linen. For a moment, the memory of her father and mother passed through her mind like an icy breeze. And then it was gone, and suddenly she was acutely aware that it was just her and Jon and the closing door to a bedroom that she hadn’t stepped foot in, not really, for a very long time.

She pushed back a knot in her throat and then said, “It’s nice in here.” She went over, touched the carved wood of the bed’s headboard, running her fingers over the deeply engraved figures of wolves and pines and falling snowflakes. “It’s almost like all this war, all this pain, all of the… death. It’s like it never happened inside here. It’s like time never touched it.” Turning, she caught Jon’s eye; he was watching her from by the door, his eyes following every inch that she moved.

“You don’t have to stay,” he mumbled.

“I want to,” she said and she felt it wasn’t a lie, not completely. Somewhere in her chest, she still felt the squeeze of several memories: _Ramsey’s fingers so tight against her arms that they blossomed with black and green and red bruises, the hot breath of Baelish as his tongue crawled into her mouth, the empty loneliness of her body after every part of it had been ripped through._ She shuttered her eyes tight, focused on her breathing and added, “As long as you want to stay.”

Then, sighing, he ran a hand over his eyes and stalked towards one of the highbacked chairs. Lowering himself into the chair, he reached over to the side table next to him and poured himself a large glass of wine from a decanter and set of glasses. He poured her one as well and outheld it towards her with a sullenness that seems to permeate the entire room. Eyeing him for a second, she finally decided to stride over, take the glass from him hesitantly.

“I thought I was too drunk?” She said before taking a thin sip from the glass.

He shrugged and leaned back his head against the back of the chair. “Like you said: you aren’t going to do anything that you don’t want to.”

She smiled smally at him over the rim of her glass. Then, she studied Jon’s face: he was looking off in the somewhere-distance, no longer keeping his eyes on her. He was trying decidedly not to look at her, this she could tell, and she knew why. Inside of her, she could feel the clench of what was tickling at the back of her mind, of what would be at the very least expected of the both of them on this evening. There was still the memories of her other wedding nights: a cold bed, bruises, a too-hot breathe against her skin. They were all shiver inducing, memories that she kept tucked very deep inside herself and even though she was suspicious of them right now, she found they were easier to quell than she thought.

She placed her wine glass on the table and began removing her taffeta coverlet.

“Wha… what are you doing?” Jon asked, whispery-quiet. He watched her wide-eyed. 

Laying the coverlet over the back of the room’s dresser, she took a long swill of wine and then turned to him. Then, raising an eyebrow, she started to work on unbuckling her dress and said, “You’ve got to learn to wipe that forlorn expression off your face. Now, drink some wine and try to act like this doesn't pain you.”

His frown became deeper and some of his face paled. “Sansa,” he said, and this time his voice was firmer, a hint of danger, “ _what are you doing?”_

Loosening the last buckle from her dress, Sansa shrugged it off her shoulders, let it puddle around her feet on the floor. She stepped over it, for once not worried about her embroidered handiwork; the wine in her brain was swirling her judgments and well-measured actions into a soft mess. Yes, she had sobered up slightly, but she suddenly felt apt to ignore the instinct to pick up her dress and fold it as neat as a letter. And she also suddenly found words tumbling out of her mouth that felt uncharacteristically blunt, “I told you, Jon, that sex is just sex. I’ve had one marriage annulled because we never consummated the union. It would be best not to risk annulling another.”

He swallowed thickly, staring at her with an expression she had only caught in his eyes on rare occasions: the moments when they both had been drinking too much and reading letters by the northern houses (back when he was still _brother_ rather than _Lyanna’s boy_ ), once when they had been down in the crypts before he left for the Dragon Queen, again only from the corner of her eye since his return. It was a strange expression that she could only define as one thing: _longing_.

She slipped the silk slip that was the last layer before she stood before him in her smallclothes. She watched as his fingernails dug into the chair’s wooden arms.

The wine made her even braver: only a couple steps and she very close to him, close enough to reach out and grab a fistful of his inky hair like she had this morning.

“We… we don't have to do this,” he mumbled, staring straight ahead, avoiding her eyes, her barely-clothed body. “I mean, _you_ don't have to do this. I told you we never had to consummate this. No one has to know that… we haven’t. You know.” His voice at the end was timid, unsure on how to breach the subject. And for a second, his timidity glazed her eyes with a sting of tears: never before had a man been so hesitant with her. Tyrion, even with his goodness, viewed her as an unwelcome guest, something too young to take with enough grave seriousness. Ramsey was a monster, full of claws and nails, the worst kind that was cruel in both mind and body. Littlefinger, as short as their marriage was (ended by a list and a sister delft with a blade), looked in her eyes and found another woman, a revenge, a last jab at the system that would never let him marry Catelyn Tully. But for once she was being considered as… a human, a real person, not a political pawn, or a piece of meat with a cluster of red hair and northern blood. But a woman of flesh and blood and feeling, and the thought emboldened her and suddenly she was closing the distance between the two of them so quickly that her thigh was pressed against his and she said, “You have to promise me one thing, Jon Snow.”

His jaw clenched, and his eyes couldn’t help but flicker up to her own; inside them were the strange, dark flame that spoke of the other side of his blood, one full of fire and dragons. His expression was one that seemed to ask her to continue.

“Promise me that I’m no longer _your shame_ ,” she said. “Promise me that you’ll stop thinking of me like that.”

His eyes widened for a moment and when he opened his mouth, a stumble of words attempted to come out and then turned merely to air. But he was able to mutter, so quietly she could almost not hear it, “I never meant that. I just… I just meant that you were not mine to desire.”

She frowned down at him, and then lowered herself onto the chair, wrapping her legs so that the inside of her thigh was pressed against his hips. Jon inhaled a thin hiss of air, and then he pursed his lips tight.

The wine hummed in her brain. Leisurely, she unclasped the hooks of his cape, slung it over his shoulders so that is slumped over the back of his chair. Slowly, she unfastened his baldric, the leather coverlet, pried them away from his body. Only once did he mumble something indistinguishable, something that sounded like a stumbled apology (“Sorry for so many layers..”) but she placed her forefinger against his lips. Then, grasping the bottom of his shirt, she tugged it out its untucked position, pulled it up, and he complied with lifting his arms enough so that the shirt was easily undone from his body

Reaching back, she unclasped her brassiere, let it fall over her shoulders. The straps slumped over her shoulder blades lazily.

Jon’s eyes were saucer-wide.

Then, she gingerly reached for one of his black curls, tucked it behind an ear. “I know that this was never in the plans,” she said, the strap of her smallclothes falling further. “I know that _we_ were never in the plans.” She shifted her knees and suddenly the middle of her was pressed firmly against his pelvis; she was acutely aware that she could feel his arousal against her and before she could let herself weigh this for too long, she let the thick stream of boldness run hot in her veins. Arching her hips, she ran the core of her along him and a ripple of something pleasant and deliciously carnal electrified her all the way to her toes.

Something like a growl moved past Jon’s lips.

Breathily, she said, her voice almost a purr, “I know. I know this isn’t what we saw when we left Winterfell so long ago. I know it seems like our paths should have never crossed, that we were never supposed to be the ones that made sense.” She shifted her hips, rolling against him and she couldn’t help a mewl from emitting from her lips. But then she swallowed thickly, pushed a stray strand of his hair back towards his scalp and said, “And - I’m sure of it - that the gods never intended for us to be together. We were never what the gods intended…”

“Fuck the gods,” he mumbled before crashing his lips up into hers.

She yelped, only for a second, before she moaned into his mouth and curled her legs tighter against his hips. The straps of her smallclothes fell completely down her arm, cradled by her elbows, and when she pressed her skin flush against him, all of her turned to a flame.

His lips found hers like remembered muscles, easy to navigate, comfortable in its task. Her lungs heaved in measured, fiery breaths and when she grabbed the hair on the nape of his neck to lean his mouth further into her own, he complied with only one request: he took ahold of the flesh on the small of her back and pulled her closer.

Her mind still growled pleasantly with wine, but when she unbuckled him, reached for him and lowered herself onto him rather indelicately, she only found her eyes turn steely, locked on his own. She didn’t feel the sore stretch of her husbands before her, the echo of empty ache as they thrust inside her body. This was different, she knew it immediately, even if she didn’t feel the lick of pleasure like she had when her hips first rocked against his own.

Jon obviously felt differently: a thin hiss of air passed his lips and when he spoke, his voice was a rumble of pleasure, “Sansa, oh gods…” And then, only a shift, he shifted his hips and moved so that something changed - _he changed_ inside her - and suddenly she saw stars, it rocked against her, inside her, rolled down her legs into her toes.

And this was what he meant when it was supposed to feel wonderful. She had heard rumors, she wasn’t a naive girl. Sansa Stark had heard the moans in King’s Landing, had known that the men who had taken to her bed enjoyed the act, but had only felt cold, stretched, empty. And she wasn’t a young, ashamed women - she had awareness of her own body, had learned long ago to figure out her own sexuality without a man.

But this was like someone had unspooled something inside of her, a coiled warmness, and unleashed it on every part of her body. This was something completely different, something almost scandalous in its deliciousness.

Rocking her hips against him, she rolled her eyes back and she found his mouth against the delicate skin of her neck, his mouth against her pulse. Something was unraveling inside her, unbraiding, and the faster she moved against him, the more it traveled through her body.

“I’m… I’m… I’m _fucking close_ ,” she murmured and even though she wasn’t sure if that was something she was allowed to say, it only encouraged a moan from Jon’s lips. She risked a look into his eyes and they were dark with that strange fire, the one she had seen so many times, one that had interrupted as a general passion, not one directed at her, one that he held specifically for her. She knew now, and it met her like a warm wash of wine.

And then, inside her, it was like a spring unsnapped. She let herself uncoil, the insides of her pulling around him and soon he was unraveling as well, she could feel his breathing hitch against her own and it felt like their lungs had hooked together.

There was a long moment when they both sat, panting heavily against one another. Slowly, she dared to meet his eyes. They were still full of strange dark fire, but there was something sheepish there.

The words left her mouth before she could stop them, it felt like a knee-jerk reaction: “Holy hells, Jon Snow. We could have been doing that this entire time?” She rested her forehead against his and added, “You’ve been holding out on me.

For only a brief second, he measured her with his gaze, an eyebrow cocked in appraisal. And then, a gasp of laughter escaped him. A roll of laughter traveled up his body, she could feel it against her own body, shaking her chest. She watched his face, slightly stunned, for a brief second, before the laughter inside her bubbled as well. When it finally came out of her, she closed her eyes, laughing carelessly for the first time in a very long time, her forehead pressed against his own, a feeling inside her chest blooming until it consumed her, a feeling that whispered, _we are home, finally, we are home_.

\--

The Queen’s guard stayed for a fortnight before the litters were packed up, the men asked to sober up, and the nights at Winterfell and Wintertown began to become increasingly quiet. Everything was being placed into the peaceful boringness of everyday life. Once, Sansa Stark despised the hush of a simple Northern life, but now she found she reveled in it. Each morning, she woke to a frosty dew of a quiet morning and she grinned into it before plaiting her hair and tip-toeing around a still-sleeping Jon.

They were both not left much to themselves. There were still preparations to be made, trade agreements to hash out. Also, the argument of _names_.

“You know my preferences,” the Dragon Queen said, arching one of her thick eyebrows. “I believe we have spoken in depth of what house and name I would ask you to swear fealty to.”

“I will not,” Jon replied quickly, brusquely. The way he said this offered no room for debate: he would not take his father’s name, the silver-haired prince who caused a war over love and prophesy.

They were bidding their time in the Maester Turret’s library. The queen was wrapped in a cloak of ermine, richly-dyed the Targaryen black and red colors.

Sansa watched, tapping her forehead and with a solemn expression. Something inside her felt that this was not her battle to fight, even though now that Jon was so… intimately attached to her.

The room was cramped, occupied by herself, Jon, the Queen, Jaime Lannister, Sir Davos, Gendry Baratheon, Tyrion Lannister and a very antsy Arya Stark. The hulking frame of Ghost took up a corner, and even though the direwolf seemed content, his presence didn't assist in everyone's comfort.

Sir Davos cleared his throat and then offered, “Would it not be the most prudent for the Stark name to be used? After all, he is the ambassador of the Northerners, and they are a loyal people.”

“He’s always been a Stark, anyway,” Arya grumbled, folding her arms across her chest huffily. “Who cares if his father was some kind of… dragon? He’s a _Stark_.”

Sansa sucked in a thin stream of air, eyeing the expression between the Queen and Arya: it was one of warning, of contempt, of a lack of trust, and she thought immediately that this was going to be a _problem_.

But before she could try to placate the situation, Jon interjected, “I’m not a Stark. I am a bastard, whether of Targaryen or Stark blood, it doesn’t matter.” The room became quiet, a bit of stunned silence amongst all of them. Then, Jon swallowed and added, “No, I am no Stark, no Targaryen. I am a _Snow_ . A wise man once told me to never forget who I am, that I should wear who I am like armor.” There was a silent exchange between him and Tyrion, who merely offered a ghost of a smile, a slight nod. And then, he continued, “I will not try to play the Northern people a fool: they shall always know who I am, that I am a _Snow_ at the end of the day. I will not be a King built on a name of lies.”

Daenerys was quiet for a very long time before she finally nodded her acquiescence. Then, softly, she asked while roving her eyes over to Sansa, “And your Queen? Is she to become a Snow as well?”

“She is a Stark,” Jon said, again his tone offering no room for debate. “She will always be a Stark.”

The Queen frowned. “And your children? Which house will they swear to?”

“I’d think if Sansa’s pushing them out, she should get to call them what she wants,” Arya quipped, her arms still folded so tightly against her chest that she looked impenetrable.

Taking only a second to roll her eyes at Arya’s comment, Sansa quickly found her voice, and said measurably “We shall worry of the child’s name if it arrives.” Locking eyes with the Dragon Queen, she prayed that the white-haired woman in front of her would understand, would herself know what it might mean when she continued, “First, let’s pray for sons and daughters. Then, we shall bother with names.”

There must have been something in the tone of her voice, something that said, _There may be no children to worry about_. Sansa had heard the rumors: the Dragon Queen’s only children were her dragons, all lost in the Long Night. The Queen’s eyes turned soft and when she leaned her head in silent agreement. It seemed she understood.

“Very well,” Daenerys said, her voice low, non-confrontational. And then, clearing her throat, she said, “Now, let’s move to another pressing matter: when is Arya Stark going to accept the myriad of proposals by her paramour, Gendry Baratheon?”

The room immediately erupted into a raucous mixture of objections, laughter, and the great long sigh of Jon Snow who merely backed away from the arguing group to reach for her hand, his fingers wrapping completely around her wrist.

\--

The first year of their marriage breezed by - there were still Lords to placate, lands to rebuild, houses to join.

The marriage between Arya and Gendry did come - her and Jon traveled to the Stormlands with the Nymeria wolfpack accompanying them. The day of the wedding was a quintessential Stormlands type of day: lightning, strong winds, sideways rain. When Sansa laid a hand on her sister’s face, right before the ceremony, Arya looked at her, offered a wry grin and said, “The gods are real bastards: remember when all I wanted was to go back to the North and you wanted to marry a prince in the South and have lots of children? And look at me, marrying a southern man and I’ve already got the whole… offspring thing… in the works?”

The news of impending children hardly surprised her (memories of ruffled hair and mouth-shaped bruises came to her easily). Laughing, Sansa pushed a stray piece of Arya’s hair away and said softly, “The gods be damned. We only can cling to our own happiness now. And you’re happy, aren’t you, Arya?”

Her sister, full of wolf’s blood and vinegar, smiled, shrugged and said, “Yeah, Gendry is alright, I guess.”

Sansa laughed and before she could turn away and walk back towards the feast hall at Storm’s End, Arya reached for her arm, made her look at her, “And you’re… you’re happy too, aren’t you, Sansa?”

She grinned and only nodded. There were no other words needed.

After the wedding and making the journey back to the cool, frosty grounds of Winterfell, the world turned back to the hush.

Jon still opened his mouth at the wrong moments, kept it closed at the wrong moments as well. He still needed her, even on the most practical of political levels. And she needed him: his mercy was well-measured, he could inspire the people with his genuine compassion, his lack of ego was transparent and people trusted him because of it. Sir Davos was right: from a tactical purview, they were a well-fitted team, filling in each other weaknesses and playing to one another’s strengths.

But he was gentle, brave and good, and when they met in the Lord’s chamber, she didn’t mind his mouth against hers at all.

There was much to do the first year, so much that she didn’t even notice when she felt a little worse for wear in the morning, didn’t notice that her bleeding had stopped, that her stamina had turned from unflappable to weary after just a half-day of fielding requests from the Houses in the Maester’s turret. When she finally realized what was happening, she felt like the wind had been taken out of her. She held the secret inside of her so long that it burned to keep it in her throat.

When she finally told him, he held her face for a long long moment and when he said, “Are you sure?” She could see the look in Jon's eyes that was a mixture of pure joy and disbelief at his luck, at both of their luck.

The baby came on a cool spring night, a daughter, the heir of Winterfell, a _Stark_ they decided. Her hair was dark and curled like her father with only the smallest hint of burgundy when they brought her out to the courtyard to play in the warming Northern air.

The war had been cruel, this Sansa Stark knew. It was etched into her heart, into Jon’s face, even into the very walls of Winterfell. And after all that blood, all that war, the fight over who would sit on the throne, it didn’t matter, it wasn’t worth all that, not then, not ever. The truth of the matter that the true walls of their house were built not by stone and iron.

The walls of their house were her and Jon and all their sons and daughters to come.

The walls of their house... it was _them_ and it was worth the fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all who gave the ~*kudos*~ and all the feedback. Apparently this became mostly a fluffy piece. I apologize.


End file.
